Nico Hoerner’s Struggles May Stem from Trying to Generate More Pull Power

Of the many sights and experiences I’ve had while visiting my late aunt in Hawaii, one that sticks out the most is driving past a home that was being bought just to be torn down. Land on O’ahu was so expensive that it was cheaper to do that than to find virgin land that could be developed. That notion was entirely foreign to me as a Midwesterner, and it still sticks in my craw even though I understand it much better now.

What I would not understand, however, is paying good money for a relatively new home — particularly one of the best homes in the entire neighborhood — and then gutting it. And yet, that is what the Cubs may be doing with Nico Hoerner. The list of players who’ve been encouraged to chase power is longer than my…well, it’s long, and Hoerner himself has been on it for several years.

The Cubs saw potential for more than the three total homers Hoerner recorded in three seasons at Stanford and began working with him immediately to tap into his wiry strength. Sure enough, he hit two between the three lowest levels of the minors in just 60 plate appearances after being drafted in 2018. One of those came with the South Bend Cubs, who were then a Low-A affiliate, with my kids and me in attendance. Hoerner then hit three in just 82 PAs after joining the big club as an emergency call-up late in 2019.

He didn’t go deep over 296 PAs across injury-plagued 2020 and ’21 seasons, then he busted out for a career-high 10 in 2022. Though his home run totals and ISO marks have declined in each season since, his well-balanced play has made him one of the game’s top second basemen. The Cubs were so keen to retain his services that they inked him to a six-year, $141 million extension at the beginning of the season.

If what Ron Coomer told 104.3 The Score’s Mully & Haugh on Friday morning is accurate, that’s a pretty expensive renovation project. It’s also wholly unnecessary.

“Nico, to me, is a much more mechanical thing,” Coomer explained. “He doesn’t pull the ball naturally, and so they’re trying to get him to pull the ball and hit the ball — because, you know, he’s a really strong guy — and use the power that he has in the game.

“Well, the mechanics of his swing makes that difficult, so I would think they’re working much more on the mechanics of his swing to where he can incorporate that in the game.”

And here I thought you weren’t supposed to fix things that weren’t broken. But is Hoerner really broken? He has looked a little lost at the plate over the last few weeks, but a lot of the underlying metrics match up with previous seasons. As bad as the most familiar numbers look, his .327 xwOBA is five points better than his previous high set last year. His bat speed is right in line with his career mark, and he’s actually producing ideal attack angles (5-20 degrees) at a higher rate than ever before.

He’s also pulling the ball a little less than last year, though he’s also going oppo less than ever while using center more than usual. If we really drill down, we find that Hoerner’s swing is a fraction of an inch longer than before. That could be an issue for someone whose 68.3 mph average swing is far from elite. He’s also catching the ball a little shallower than in the past while standing shallower in the box with much greater distance between his feet.

That last one is easily the biggest change he’s made, as the 33.4-inch width of his stance is 4.5 inches wider than ever before. Or at least in the four seasons since such measurements existed. As a novice hitting analyst, I would guess that the changes were made to help create a strong, more stable base from which to create an intercept point that is more out front. That is, after all, where home runs are hit.

For example, Aaron Judge catches the ball around 4 inches in front of the plate. Pete Crow-Armstrong is at a very nice 6.9 inches this season. Kyle Schwarber, who stands farther up in the box than most of his peers, is meeting the ball 15.4 inches in front of the plate this season. Hoerner is at -1.9 inches after being at -2.6 last year, and that’s due in large part to his bat speed being 7-10 ticks slower than that trio of mashers.

Incongruous as those comps may be, I used them to illustrate the absurdity of asking Hoerner to do something that his swing simply isn’t built to do.

“Well, that hasn’t worked out real well because he’s gone from hitting .300 to hitting .240, let’s say,” Coom Dawg continued. “And he’s in the worst slump of his career because of him trying to do that. It’s tough to make big adjustments in a major league season when you’re trying to also compete.”

It’s not just tough, it’s counterintuitive and borderline irresponsibly stupid. If, that is, the Cubs are indeed trying to squeeze power from Hoerner like water from a rock. Just because they might not be getting pop from other sources — like Alex Bregman, who never should have been counted on to suddenly reverse his trend of diminishing returns — doesn’t mean they should be trying to synthesize it out of thin air. Neither Dustin Kelly nor John Mallee is Rumpelstiltskin, and Hoerner isn’t a miller’s daughter.

In all fairness to Craig Counsell‘s staff, it’s possible this is something Hoerner himself has been asking for, perhaps as a way to make good on that extension. Again, though, he didn’t get paid because of what he might be. He got paid to continue being who he was, and the Cubs desperately need him to get back to that. Just keep posting around a 110 wRC+ and playing Gold Glove defense with great baserunning, that’s it.

Picking up three hits in Friday’s lopsided win did a number on what had been a .148/.203/.185 slash line with a wRC+ of 9 in June. He’s up to .183/.231/.233 and 30 for the month heading into Saturday’s action. Now it’s just a matter of Hoerner staying true to who he is as a hitter, and things should turn around in a hurry.