DataBaseball
2026
Nico Hoerner headshot

Players · H · 2B · 2026

Nico Hoerner

Age
29
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 11"
Weight
200 lb
Number
#2
Born
May 13, 1997 in Oakland, CA, United States
MLB debut
September 9, 2019
Drafted
2018, round 1
College
Stanford
High school
Head-Royce
Salary, 2026
$12M
dbWAR
17.4
8 season(s)
PA
687
AVG
.264
OBP
.317
SLG
.351
wRC+
87
100 = avg

Nico Hoerner is a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. So far in 2026 he has hit 8 home runs and knocked in 72 RBIs, notching 165 hits across 687 plate appearances in 158 games. His batting average is .264, 8.1% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .317 clip and slugged .351, for an OPS of .669, 6.9% lower than the league mark of .719 — the second worst on his team, and 296th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 86.0 mph off the bat, hit 29.4% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 1.4% of them and made contact on 88.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 87 wRC+ puts his offence 13% below average. That comes to 1.9 dbWAR — -10.3 runs with the bat, -0.3 for the ballpark, +1.5 on the bases, -1.3 on double plays, +7.0 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+87
wOBA.300
ISO.088
BB%6.3%
WAR1.9

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +17.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-10.3Ballpark-0.3Baserunning+1.5Double plays-1.3Position+7.0Replacement+21.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.91.9-0.11920212223242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026CHC158687165872234358.264.317.351.088.2766.3%8.4%.300-10.3871.9
2025CHC156649178761293949.297.345.394.097.3136.0%7.6%.326+6.01083.9
2024CHC149641159748314466.273.335.373.100.2976.9%10.3%.315+1.71113.5
2023CHC150688175968434983.283.346.383.100.3127.1%12.1%.324+2.41013.7
2022CHC1335171351055202857.281.327.410.129.3005.4%11.0%.320+3.71093.4
2021CHC441704501651725.302.382.369.067.36010.0%14.7%.333+2.31090.8
2020CHC451262401331224.222.312.259.037.2799.5%19.0%.268-5.766-0.1
2019CHC2082223170311.282.305.436.154.2923.7%13.4%.307-1.1910.3

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP173161413917.255.301.373.2999.8%
vs RHP51446512453441.267.323.344.3018.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 573 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 572 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
1.4%
8 barrels
Exit velocity
86.0
mph average
Max exit velo
108.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
29.4%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.5%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.9°
average
Barrel rate1.4%
Exit velocity86.0 mph
Hard hit rate29.4%
Contact rate88.2%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.108.176.212.156.30446 AB.31657 AB.31435 AB.40754 AB.30080 AB.21746 AB.40727 AB.30852 AB.19147 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Nico Hoerner hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations687——————.264.317.351.300
Bases empty41338391552532.238.293.321.278
Runner on first9586341797.395.453.547.438
Runners on274243743671826.305.354.399.334
RISP17915740260919.255.302.318.278

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Nico Hoerner beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Nico Hoerner

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.