He's only played 68 games with 200 PA's. He hit ok in 2019 and terrible in 2020, hit well in the minors, and was on fire in spring training. He certainly deserves his chance when the service time issue is up. The Cubs need guys like him to develop into every day guys or we are in big trouble going forward.
He didn’t hit well in the minors. He hit well in 60 games at Rookie and A-ball level in 2018. He put up pretty pedestrian numbers at AA in 2019 and was called up without ever taking an at bat in AAA. His on base percentage in the Majors has been putrid. He showed some decent power in his brief call up in 19, but that evaporated in 2020.
I see a lot of Albert Almora parallels in a 1st round draft pick moved along too aggressively and given MLB playing time without ever showing he’s earned it at the minor league level. He’s the same kind of “gritty,” defense-oriented player that a certain segment of the baseball cognoscenti loves, but who’s a dime a dozen in terms of being able to replace cheaply. (To Hoerner’s credit, he’s actually very good defensively, while Almora was above average at best.) Unfortunately, COVID has robbed Nico of a ton of minor league at bats that might have helped him develop.
All that said, it’s not like the Cubs have a viable better offensive option at 2B (or SS for that matter, as Baez seems to have lost all notion of where the strike zone is), Nico is not getting any competitive at bats right now, and we know he can handle the position with the glove.
As bdutts referenced, it’s not like Hoerner is going to come in and do significantly worse offensively.