Craig Counsell may have exposed a Nico Hoerner flaw Cubs can't fix

One year removed from a near-miss on an NL batting title crown and the best single-season output of his MLB career, Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner sharply trended in the wrong direction in 2026.

He finished with a .263 batting average and 84 OPS+, both his lowest marks since the shortened 2020 season. His 2.1 bWAR was about one-third of his 6.2 bWAR mark from 2025 and there seemed to be more questions than answers about his numbers at the dish.

“This is the thing with Nico,” Craig Counsell said at the end of the year. “This is the thing that’s hard to understand. When you put the ball in play as much as Nico, luck affects him more than any other player.”

To Counsell's point, his xBA was .297, more than 30 points higher than where he shook out. Hoerner ranked in the 99th percentile in K%, 98th in squared-up % and 97th in whiff rate. All of those marks are nearly identical to his monster 2025, when he slashed .297/.345/.394 and was a major offensive catalyst for the Cubs.

“Nico is one of the trickiest offensive players to evaluate,” Counsell said.“He’s an outlier in this league with how he creates offense. Even the statistics around the expected stuff and the actual stuff with Nico, I question them at times.”

Cubs should feel confident in Nico Hoerner's consistent approach

That's a lot of flex in the output for a guy who did the exact same thing in terms of expected metrics. Hoerner seems likely to live and die via BAbip (evidenced by a .313 mark in 2025 and .275 this year), but there's little Counsell or the Cubs, as an organization, can do there.

They'd be short-sighted to start dramatically altering Hoerner's approach at the plate or messing with his mechanics. There's value in a high-contact, low-whiff guy in the mix, especially for a team whose offensive identity has boiled down to its ability to slug in recent years. If anything, surrounding him with more contact-oriented bats could help give the offense a new look and added dimension.

It's wildly frustrating to see Hoerner's numbers suffer like they did this season, but even acknowledging there's nothing the Cubs can really do to fix it, there shouldn't be any panic over his 2026 numbers or the extension he signed with the team last spring that runs through the 2032.

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