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It's not as though Owen Caissie is a sure thing. He struck out over 30 percent of the time in Double A in 2023, a red flag consistent with the rest of his professional track record. That's why the Cubs aren't banking on him. On the other hand, Caissie hits the stuffing out of the ball. Baseball America gathered exit velocity data on all the hitters who made their Top 100 prospects list this month, and Caissie's average of 93.3 miles per hour was fourth-highest. Playing (primarily) at a higher level of competition, he matched the average exit velocity of elite prospect and top 2023 draftee Dylan Crews. Caissie batted .289/.398/.519, and his maximum exit velocity was over 117 miles per hour.
That kind of power puts a player in league not just with big-leaguers, but with the best sluggers in that league. He's just a half-step behind Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. He's right in line with Joey Gallo. That's what makes Caissie too fascinating to overlook or discount, in the medium-term future. Like those hitters, he will strike out a lot, but like them, he also shows patience and a good eye at the plate. He walked over 14 percent of the time last year, at a very young age for his level of competition. (Five months younger than Crews, Caissie played the whole season at Double A.)
He's not as good a pure hitter as Judge or Ohtani. The question is whether he can be as good as Gallo, because if so, he can still be tremendously productive in the big leagues. To that end, let's talk about not just how hard Caissie hits the ball, but where.
Here are Caissie's spray charts for 2021 and 2022, as he ascended through the lower levels of the minors. He was a good hitter during those two years, but not a great one. In 659 plate appearances, he hit 32 doubles, two triples, and 18 homers. That's not bad, given the leagues and parks in which he was playing and his extreme youth. It's just that it wouldn't make him a viable big-leaguer, given all the strikeouts he's sure to rack up.
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Frankly, it's impressive that a player as young as Caissie was able to generate even fairly modest power numbers with such an opposite field-focused approach. Caissie was hitting with authority to all fields, but it's hard to hit for big power without consistently pulling the ball in the air, and he didn't do it.
Let's turn to his 2023 spray chart.
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Now, that is more like it. That's how you have to hit the ball in order to make up for striking out over 30 percent of the time, as Caissie seems certain to do in the bigs. In about 130 fewer plate appearances than over the previous two seasons combined, Caissie had 31 doubles, two triples, and 22 homers. Without losing the ability to hammer the ball to the gap in left-center field, he started consistently elevating, and doing it to his pull field in right.
Had Caissie been in MLB, his rate of pulling the ball to far right field (basically, the two rightmost sections of the charts above) would have led the league. Since he wasn't, it was Gallo who led in that category. That doesn't sound especially complimentary, but Gallo is better than his reputation. He's been wildly inconsistent since the onset of the pandemic, but he was highly effective in his early 20s, and even in 2023, he posted a 104 wRC+, with 21 home runs in 332 plate appearances.
If Caissie truly had Gallo's power (including the ability to actualize it), he'd already be in the big leagues. Pulling the ball more, putting it in the air more, these are vital aspects of getting to more of an individual's power, but they aren't the whole picture, and one can't answer all the important questions about that picture without climbing above Double A and seeing some more advanced pitching.
With Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Michael Busch, and Christopher Morel already on the roster, the Cubs don't have a lot of available playing time for a player like Caissie, who's only cut out to be a corner outfielder or a first baseman, if not a DH. If they re-sign Cody Bellinger, the eye of that needle will only get smaller. Caissie's already had a full season in Tennessee, though. He's on the verge of the big leagues, where he'll have to either pass or fail the test the great pitchers there will pose. If he can continue developing on the arc he described this past season, he can force his way into the team's plans sooner, rather than later.
How do you think Caissie fits into the Cubs' short- and longer-term plans? Do you expect to see him make a significant impact in the big leagues this year? Discuss below.
Research assistance provided by TruMedia.
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