Red-hot Hoerner's luck is turning, adding another year to his robot-like consistency

As Pete Crow-Armstrong furthered his case for National League MVP on Monday night, hitting a leadoff and walk-off home run against the crosstown rival White Sox, Nico Hoerner put together a day at the plate that (understandably) went a bit overshadowed.

Hoerner went 4-for-5 with a pair of RBIs, including the game-tying knock in the bottom of the ninth inning. That’s just more of what he does: Since becoming an everyday player in 2022, his .294 batting average with runners in scoring position ranks 21st among MLB players with at least 500 chances.

It was also just another sign of things getting better for the Cubs’ stalwart second baseman, whose role has now expanded to everyday shortstop duties with Dansby Swanson on the injured list.

Hoerner’s .358 batting average in 31 games since the All-Star Break leads the National League, adding seven extra-base hits and 20 RBIs. He’s raised his average 31 points to .264 in that timeframe.

In fact, Hoerner’s year-long expected batting average is at .301, third in baseball behind only Yordan Alvarez and Bobby Witt Jr. That makes his -0.37 difference in xBA vs. actual batting average tied for the sixth-largest across MLB.

The 29-year-old Hoerner blitzed March and April to begin this season, slashing .291/.370/.449 after a career-best .739 OPS in 2025. That came fresh on the heels of agreeing to a six-year extension with the Cubs at the end of March.

But things quickly took a turn thereafter. He hit just .202 between May 1 and the end of the first half.

The catch? Hoerner’s xBA only bottomed out at .266 in June, with a fine .293 in May and a skyrocketing .342 in July. He seemed to have rotten batted-ball luck in his down stretch.

Hoerner posted a .243 batting average on balls in play in the first half of the season, including .216 after May 1. For context, his career mark sits at .302 entering Friday.

Since the break, Hoerner is enjoying an outsized .383 BABIP. That number may not be sustainable, but we’ll call it karma for the tough luck he hit into for long stretches of the season.

Now, thanks to this extended hot streak, Hoerner is slowly creeping toward his career averages at the plate. He’s up to a .264/.322/.362 slash in 2026 compared to a lifetime average of .279/.337/.380.

Hoerner has been a model of consistency for years on the North Side, someone who colloquially plays the game “the right way” with his defense, hustle, clutch hitting and everyday presence in the lineup. The fan-favorite Hoerner even gets an occasional jab for his picture-perfect running form.

And thanks to the new compare tool introduced on Savant this season, we have a unique way to show just how robotic he appears to be. Since becoming a fixture in Chicago, his Statcast profile is eerily identical.

Hoerner boasts an xBA around the upper-15th percentile every year. That’s paired with some of the best strikeout and swing-and-miss numbers in the game, albeit while chasing outside the zone at a high rate. He doesn’t take many walks and doesn’t hit the ball especially hard, but he makes up for it by squaring the ball up with the best of ‘em (meaning he frequently produces near-maximum exit velocities based on his swing speed and the speed of the pitch he hit).

Hoerner’s resume is not unlike that of now-Phillies second baseman Luis Arraez, he of three batting titles and widespread respect as the game’s best pure contact hitter. Hoerner isn’t far off from Arraez’s profile. But you don’t always hear their names in the same conversations.

Hoerner hasn’t won a batting title -- narrowly finishing second to Trea Turner in the NL in 2025 -- but like Arraez, his elite contact approach has led to above-average offensive output for years on end.

And unlike Arraez (at least until a renaissance in 2026), Hoerner has graded as a flat-out elite defender over his career. He won the Gold Glove in 2023 and 2025. Since 2022, Hoerner’s 36 total Fielding Run Value is second to only Andrés Giménez (48) among primary second basemen in that span.

We can compare Hoerner’s consistency further with someone like Guardians star José Ramírez, who has long been lauded as one of the game’s most underrated players. Injuries have hampered Ramírez this season, but you’ve been able to pencil in 30-ish home runs, 100-ish RBIs and 20-plus stolen bases for him the past few years.

But even Ramírez, as consistent as his Savant profile has been year over year, sees a bit more fluctuation. He swung harder and barreled the ball slightly more in 2024, at the price of more chase and fewer walks.

To be clear, the Statcast consistency we’re highlighting does not alone make a player better or worse than another. There are, obviously, many ways to achieve success at the plate. It’s just incredible how steady Hoerner’s profile has been.

Hoerner received down-ballot MVP votes last season, but the 2018 first-round Draft pick has never been an All-Star in his eight years in the big leagues.

The Cubs’ four-year running Heart and Hustle Award nominee, however, has been one of the game’s most consistently productive players for some time. And now he’s on fire at the right time, as his club pushes for the postseason and World Series contention.