Nico Hoerner and the Power of the Pulled Line-Drive Approach

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

If you want to play with some selective endpoints, you can end up pretty deeply impressed by Nico Hoerner these days. He blasted his fourth home run of the season in the Cubs' seventh straight win on Tuesday night, and since last August 24—I did warn you the endpoints would be selective—he's batting .327/.384/.505 in 245 regular-season plate appearances. Kick in a tremendous postseason showing, you're up to .339/.388/.510 in 278 trips to the dish. He has 26 extra-base hits in that span. He's hit 8 homers.

The topic of Hoerner's power potential has been an almost constant point of discussion over the last few years. I wrote about the very low apparent ceiling for it in May 2024, based on his inability to reach high-end exit velocities and the way defenses have evolved to cut off balls better as they head for the gaps. I also wrote about the way Hoerner's hands work (relative to one another and to the bat) in the context of his bat control and contact skills in early 2023, which included a discussion of how that style of swing consciously trades power for contact and opposite-field value. By last September, however, it was clear Hoerner had made some adjustments. He'd locked into a new approach that, without sacrificing the ability to go the other way or to make good swing decisions and draw the occasional walk, produced many more line drives to left field. It boosted his batting average more than his isolated power, but once you're pulling the ball in the air a bit more, power increases almost on its own.

Back at the beginning of spring training, Randy Holt wrote about the questions posed by Hoerner's late-season power surge, and tried to assess the likelihood that it would carry over. About a week into the season, I followed up with a partial answer, based on some changes Hoerner brought into this campaign: a slightly wider stance and a shorter stride, giving him more early stability and the capacity to hit the ball hard down the lines, rather than toward center field. Now, it's time to synthesize all that into a firm answer to an increasingly pressing question: Is Hoerner a full-fledged power hitter now?

He is, and he isn't. Oh, man. That's not the satisfying answer we all wanted, is it? Ok, let me try again. Yes, Hoerner has found the best way to unlock power in his game. Those adjustments we saw last year did quite a bit of the work; his stance adjustments this spring have completed the job. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the batted balls over 88 MPH in exit velocity Hoerner produced from the start of last season through August 15, and the ones hit at least that hard that he's produced since, by launch angle.

To spot the differences, note that he's not hitting balls hard into the ground or popping them up. Next, note the right edge of the curve described by the chart. He's hitting it slightly harder, at the high end, and he's clustering his hard contact in a productive launch-angle band. Now, here's his spray chart heatmap for those same batted balls, with the same dividing dateline.

Fewer of these well-hit balls are going to right field. More are going deeper into left, left-center, and center. That larger, brighter blob blooming in shallower left field on the right is the surest sign of his overall progress; those are the balls his approach is now focused on generating. He'll always be better at producing hard-hit singles to left field than at slugging; it's what he does best. His bat speed is below-average, and that's not going to change. He's not going to hit 30 home runs; he very well might never even hit 20.

A couple years ago, though, it looked like Horner was destined to hit anywhere from .280 to .310 and slug anywhere from .350 to .390. Now, I think, you can safely bump the latter number up to .420, and maybe even .450. He's gotten a bit of good fortune over these 280ish plate appearances; he's hit a couple of wall-scrapers that just barely carried out of the park. However, Hoerner's power surge is real. Why? Because he's dedicated himself to the pulled line drive.

Lock in on that outcome, and the rest of what's needed falls into place. Most line-drive hitters like to hit it right back where it came from, and that's what Hoerner used to do, too. The guys with low bat speed who still hit for good power (including recent ex-Cubs Cody Bellinger and Isaac Paredes) aren't line-drive guys; they focus on pulling fly balls. The pulled line drive is not a popular approach, because it takes a special kind of hitter—and a particular set of constraints eliminating the chances of being other ones—to execute it. Hoerner is that special a hitter, though, and as he's embraced that, he's become more dangerous, in multiple facets. 

He's hit four home runs this year. Could he hit 10 or 12 more, before the year is out, without trading in the other things he's doing well? At long last, that answer is "yes". It might not make him a full-fledged MVP candidate, but this power boost does make Hoerner a legitimate All-Star, and it's already making the contract extension he and the team signed feel like a huge win for the Cubs.

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