Now seen as one of Cubs' biggest offensive threats, Busch looking to take next step

MESA, Ariz. -- Five months later, Nico Hoerner still remembers the sequence. The Padres had hard-throwing reliever Robert Suarez on the mound at Wrigley Field and he threw four consecutive changeups to Cubs slugger Michael Busch.

In a tense October environment, Busch swung through two of them and watched two others miss to pull the count even. And with Chicago’s season in the balance in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series, Busch finally saw a fastball. He torched it into the right-field bleachers for a seventh-inning homer that poured life into the party.

“To me, that’s a pretty out-of-body, ridiculous sequence of events,” Hoerner said. “To hit a ball 107 [mph] to the pull side on the first fastball you see from a guy throwing 100 is pretty amazing. And I felt like it was a nice reflection of where he was at -- at the plate, mentally, physically.”

Or, as Craig Counsell summed things up earlier this spring:

“He’s become a dangerous, dangerous hitter,” said the Cubs manager.

The spotlight tends to gravitate toward other Chicago hitters -- Pete Crow-Armstrong for his electric style of play and infectious personality; Alex Bregman for the lucrative contract and expected impact; Seiya Suzuki for the prodigious power displays -- but Busch has quietly grown into a polished, powerful offensive piece for the North Siders.

That was evident during the postseason, when it was clear how much the Padres (Wild Card round) and Brewers (NL Division Series) respected Busch’s presence and abilities. And even as pitchers tried to work around Chicago’s first baseman late in the season and then during the playoffs, he began to thrive as the pressure mounted.

“Clearly, Michael had a great season last year,” Counsell said. “By the end of the year, it was really interesting how you could feel this flip in how the other team viewed him. You could feel it, right? The other teams, the second half of the game, and even to start the game, we saw in the playoffs, [planned] around Michael Busch.

“And that’s the sign of the season he had. I mean, nothing else says it more than that. The other team was telling you everything you need to know.”

During the Cubs’ eight postseason games, the 28-year-old Busch hit .296/.387/.741. The first baseman launched four homers and ended the playoffs with a 1.128 OPS. He became the first player in MLB history to have multiple leadoff homers in a single postseason series, going deep in Game 1 and Game 3 of the NLDS against Milwaukee.

And that scorching showing in the playoffs came after Busch ended his regular season hitting at a .316 clip with eight homers, 14 RBIs, 50 total bases and a 1.280 OPS in his final 16 games. That included an outburst with four extra-base hits on Sept. 27 against the Cardinals, who he absolutely tormented throughout the year.

Busch said that he was so focused on his plan and maintaining the timing he had found down the stretch that he did not really notice teams adjusting their plans against him too much. The first baseman did, however, hear that feedback from other people with the Cubs.

“I remember somebody saying something like that,” Busch said. “And it was kind of like, ‘Whoa.’ I never really thought of myself like that, obviously, with the guys we have in our lineup. For me, I did catch a little bit of heat at the end of the year in the last couple weeks and was swinging the bat well. So, I’m guessing that had a part in it.”

Busch said he has been using this Spring Training to concentrate on finding ways to remain consistent with his timing in the batter’s box. The first baseman said his goal is to have his leg kick reach its “max height” just before or close to the moment the pitcher lets go of the ball. If he can repeat that successfully, the rest of his swing tends to sync up.

Busch ended the ‘25 season hitting .261/.343/.523 with a team-leading 34 home runs. He also led the Cubs’ regulars in slugging percentage and OPS (.866), finishing with 25 doubles and 90 RBIs in 155 games. Busch improved across the board from his rookie showing in ‘24 and saw his OPS+ climb to 147 in ‘25, compared to 118 in ‘24.

And then Busch found another level in the playoffs.

“It’s cool when you see that,” Hoerner said. “That was playoff pitching we were facing and the stakes were higher than they’ve ever been. And that’s probably the highest-quality pitching we faced all year. And it also brought out the best in him. It’s a pretty cool thing to see.”