Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner knows his role and continues to thrive in it

Once upon a time in the not-so-distant past, Nico Hoerner was a name that was thrown around quite a bit in trade rumors as the Chicago Cubs looked to shake things up ahead of the 2025 season. The Cubs ruled against a trade and now sit in first place in the National League, largely due to Hoerner’s underappreciated heroics.

After a three-hit showing Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds, Hoerner’s batting average is up to .301 on the year, the highest average on the Cubs. The former first-rounder has been even better with runners in scoring position, driving in 26 runs to go along with an average of .424, a number that not only leads the Cubs but ranks fifth in all of Major League Baseball.

Paired with Gold Glove-caliber defense, Hoerner deserves to be mentioned in conversations about the best hitters in baseball, yet he never is. Despite all he brings to the table, there is one “flaw” in his game that many believe is holding him back.  

Nico Hoerner is not a power hitter and never will be, and that’s OK

Out of all the qualified hitters in Major League Baseball with over 200 plate appearances, only one does not have a single home run to his name, and that is Nico Hoerner. Power has never been a major factor of his game, with his highest number of home runs in a season being the ten he hit in 2022. 

Hoerner struggled at times during the 2024 season in the midst of searching for more power in his swing. Even in what was considered a “down year”, Hoerner led the Cubs with 159 hits and was third on the team with 3.7 bWAR. 

Hoerner has embraced the role of the contact hitter in 2025, and the numbers are some of the best in the sport. Few players in the sport strike out less than Hoerner, who boasts a whiff rate of 10.9 percent and a strikeout rate of just 7.8 percent, ranking in the 98th and 99th percentile, respectively. 

While his average exit velocity and bat speed numbers are near the bottom of MLB percentiles, Hoerner squares the ball up 37 percent of the time, one of the best rates in all of baseball, proving it’s not about how hard you hit it, but where you hit it.

On the defensive end, Hoerner is second among NL second basemen with 5 Outs Above Average, one behind Miami’s Otto Lopez. Hoerner has been in the Gold Glove conversation throughout his entire career, and this year looks to be no different. 

Since his promotion in 2019, Hoerner has quietly become one of the sport’s premier contact hitters, a dying art in today’s home run-centered offense. While he may not receive the praise that say Kyle Tucker or Pete Crow-Armstrong have received, the Cubs look poised to make a deep playoff push this season largely due to Hoerner’s heroics, and it’s time the league starts to notice.