When the Cubs talk about how impressed they were with Nico Hoerner’s 20-game debut last September, the story always starts with how he was sitting on his couch when they called in emergency need of a shortstop for the stretch run.
That’s where he was again when baseball started back up after the coronavirus shutdown, too, same couch, same house in Oakland with his parents.
“I was kind of laughing with my dad about that,” Hoerner said, “just, like, ‘We’ve done this before. I’ll have a little more time to get ready this time, so it won’t be that bad.’”
Being ready has never been an issue for Hoerner, who proved that much when he handled shortstop every day and hit .282 in the middle of a division race last September.
The bigger question about Hoerner in this strange, short season might be how ready a bunch of pitchers who haven’t faced him will be over the next two months — and whether he can get hot enough out of the gate to make it matter.
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Cubs manager David Ross has made it clear that hot bats will stay in his lineup during a season where each game is worth more than three times the value of one in a typical 162-game season.
And if that means the club’s best defensive option at second base finds his way into a regular place in Ross’ lineup, then that could make Hoerner the North Side’s version of everybody’s favorite White Sox rookie hope, Luis Robert.
Wait, what?
No, the 5-foot-11 Hoerner isn’t suddenly going to morph into a 6-foot-3 power hitter who hits homers two at a time or even when falling down.
But both are the kind of lesser-known quantities who might be able to ambush a reconfigured 10-team “league” over 60 games.
“Just in general the less you know about hitters, you have have a little bit of time for the league not to figure you out or try to exploit your weaknesses,” Ross said.
Baseball history is filled with stories of good young hitters who get off to quick starts only to struggle later in their rookie seasons, or in their second seasons, as pitchers adjust.
Ross isn’t sure the theory applies as much to Hoerner, if only because teams have a 20-game big-league book on him from 2019 already, and these days teams start building those books in the minors, especially the upper levels.
On the other hand, Hoerner skipped Triple-A; he played only 142 minor-league games total — the first player from his draft class to reach the majors — and has never faced six of the nine teams on the Cubs’ schedule this season, including the Cubs’ first opponent, the Brewers.
Regardless, “I like his approach whether he’s played for five years or six months,” Ross said of his contact-hitting rookie with sneaky pop and veteran-like poise.
In the surreal, upside-down world of pandemic baseball, nobody can predict how any number of veteran players will react to a season that starts four months late and lasts just long enough for some guys to typically be getting warmed up.
Kyle Hendricks, for example, typically pitches well this time of year but typically doesn’t start as well as he finishes — so what should we expect from this year’s Opening Day starter? Or anyone else?
“I don’t know. We’ve never done this before,” Ross said.
So under circumstances that already assured a big-league job for Hoerner instead of a Triple-A assignment, keep an eye on the rookie from Stanford in a 60-game dash.
Who knows? He might even be a sneaky long shot in a National League Rookie of the Year race with no clear favorite, depending on how much guys like Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson and Padres left-hander MacKenzie Gore factor into their teams’ plans.
Hoerner doesn’t know if he might have an early advantage over unfamiliar pitchers this year. “Could be,” he said.
But some of the rest of the conditions are strangely familiar to a guy playing in the Pac-12 barely two years ago.
“The 60-game season is literally just like a college baseball season, and this three-week buildup is exactly what we do in college with instrasquads and stuff,” Hoerner said. “And there’s no one in the stands, just like college baseball.”
The Cubs are still trying to find out what they have behind their Friday night starter on a pitching staff that makes the Super Regionals look like a long shot at this point.
MORE: Why Tyler Chatwood will be the Cubs' No. 3 starter, not Jon Lester
But they have a hitting core of All-Stars that figure to make a lot of games at least entertaining in a short season — and maybe even a sneaky-impact addition a lot of people aren’t paying much attention to as the season starts.
“I’m lucky to be here at all,” Hoerner said. “A lot of people aren’t playing baseball right now. Pretty amazing.”
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