Nico Hoerner is Becoming a Throwback, in a Bad Way

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It was, relatively speaking, easy to hit an empty .300 in the late 1990s. Everyone could hit .280. Your extra hit a week wasn't worth much, unless you also added some extra-base hits and some walks. It's a lot harder to hit an empty .300 these days, but here's Nico Hoerner, doing it.

In a league that's hitting .244, a batter with a batting average of .313—and that's what Hoerner is hitting, since the All-Star break, .313—is almost unavoidably contributing value. Hell, the league's aggregate OBP is only .318. Hit .313, and you're practically there. You're also almost guaranteed to slug at least .400, which is the league's average rate this year.

Aha. Alas. 'Almost'. That's the most dangerous word in all of English. Hoerner has been so undisciplined and so light on thump over the last two-plus months that he's missing out on that almost sure thing. His batting line for the second half of the season is .313/.341/.396. In 255 plate appearances, he's managed only 11 extra-base hits and 7 walks. Technically, his line is above-average, but Hoerner just isn't doing enough to actually move the Cubs toward wins.

Case in point: the bottom of the fourth inning Wednesday night. With a runner on third and one out, Hoerner only needed to put the ball in play to break the scoreless tie. He strikes out less than 10% of the time. That should have been a gimme run. Marlins starter Ryan Gusto, perhaps aware he was in big trouble, promptly fell behind 3-0, at which point the run was practically hovering over the plate, just waiting to land. Instead:

Taking a 3-0 fastball at the top of the zone is often a fine idea, but when you're a singles-only hitter who specializes in line drives and when there's a run waiting at third and all you need to do is hit it to the outfield, that's a pitch you should swing at. It was ok, though. One bad swing decision won't cost you a game very often.

Swing at a 3-1 sinker way in off the plate, though, and we're no longer talking about one bad swing decision. Hoerner whiffed on that offering, and suddenly, Gusto was back in the fight. Two bad swing decisions will sometimes cost you a game, especially when they come on back-to-back pitches in an important situation.

But man, the 3-2 freeze-up on a four-seamer at the knees, that was the real punch in the gut. It might not be a great pitch to hit, but you have to (at least) foul it off. If you're a hitter like Hoerner, who won't add value by knocking one over the fence, and if you're in a spot where drawing a walk isn't especially helpful, you have to at least foul it off.

Kyle Stowers beat the Cubs again. He's been an enormous pain for them ever since joining the Marlins, with six homers in 43 career plate appearances against them. He beat them singlehandedly one day last May, a 3-1 Marlins victory in which he hit two homers and a triple. He beat them with a home run that made their lives harder and led to the game going to extra innings Tuesday. He beat them with a two-run homer on a night when the Cubs could hardly get a ball to the warning track Wednesday.

Power wins games, sometimes. Hoerner has an uphill battle to be as valuable a hitter as Stowers, because he lacks power. Lately, he also lacks the refined approach that let him run a .377 OBP in the second half of 2023 and a .365 in the second half of 2025. When Hoerner stepped to the plate in the bottom of the fourth Wednesday, though, he had a chance to win a game without power. He didn't even need to bolster that empty batting average, in that particular at-bat.

His skill set demands that Hoerner come through in situations like that. If he can't, he needs to get back to drawing walks and finding gaps or the corners. Otherwise, the Cubs (who need Hoerner pretty badly, just now) will go home early—not Sunday, in all likelihood, but before next weekend.