Some rumors aren’t worth the effort.
We’ve danced this dance for a couple years, so you know the drill. I fill time in the offseason by writing about players who will never, ever play for the Giants. I do this because there’s no actual baseball to write about, and it’s not that dissimilar to buying a Powerball ticket. You get two minutes of deep sighs and creative dreams before returning to the drudgery of real life, and it’s hopefully better than nothing.
There has to be a line, though. So when the first Nico Hoerner-on-the-trading-block rumors came out, I ignored them. Hoerner is a fan-favorite in Chicago, and he’s a leader in the clubhouse. Everybody loves ol’ Nico, and he’s good at baseball, so they’re happy to have him around. Those kinds of players don’t get traded away from big-market teams.
Except those players do get traded away from big-market teams when an owner’s big, salty brain gets in the way. It’s how Mookie Betts found himself on the Dodgers. And now that the Cubs’ owners have shelled out a lot of clams for Alex Bregman, it’s worth wondering how the team will use three players (Bregman, Hoerner and Matt Shaw) for two spots. The obvious answer is “keep ‘em all, and it’ll work itself out,” but you’re underestimating just how salty these brains can be. We’re talking weird Swedish-candy-salty in some of the extreme cases.
Hoerner is a dream trade candidate, and not just because he would fulfill the necessary role of “new guy at second base” that every Giants championship team has, similar to Brendan Donovan. Hoerner would be perfect for the current Giants roster in every respect, on both sides of the ball and in the clubhouse, too.
He’s currently that player for the Cubs, so first we have to see why they’d be silly enough to trade him.
Why the Cubs would trade Nico Hoerner
Look, you know they’d be silly to do it. I know they’d be silly to do it. So do national writers and Cubs beat writers. But the Bregman signing really does change the long-term forecast for the organization.
The Cubs will have a decision to make soon. Bregman is now with the Cubs through 2030. Shaw, who just finished his rookie season, is under team control through 2031 at owner-friendly prices. Hoerner is a free agent after the 2026 season, and he’ll command a hefty deal.
You see who appears to be the odd man out. Shaw has experience at second, both in the minors and majors, and Bregman has expressed an openness to switching positions in the past, so don’t get too caught up on Shaw and Bregman playing the same position last season. One guy has a no-trade clause into the next decade. Another guy is going to make relative peanuts for even longer. And the other guy will need a nine-figure deal to stick around.
It’s possible that the Cubs will choose to offer Hoerner that deal. The club is almost certainly printing money, as the kids say. They could move Shaw to the outfield, perhaps, or they could trade him to one of those smaller-market teams that need pre-arbitration salaries to field a competitive roster. Not like the big-market Cubs, who can just afford to pay their homegrown, fan-favorite players.
Nico Hoerner is a homegrown fan favorite, the kind of player the Cubs’ ownership should have no qualms about keeping long term. (John Fisher / Getty Images)
Except, while you might think the Cubs are printing money because of things like “available evidence” and “common sense,” the actual owners dispute that. They are on the record as saying they’re incapable of matching the Dodgers’ or Mets’ spending. They’re not unwilling; they just can’t in this version of the story. So when they sign a player to a contract like Bregman’s, it will have a downstream effect on how the rest of the roster is built.
With that established, take a closer look at Hoerner’s value. Baseball-Reference had him as being worth 6.2 WAR last season, which is elite. A huge chunk of that value comes from his abilities as a baserunner and fielder, though. His slash lines are strong enough, but you have to append “for a middle infielder” to get too excited about them. Here they are for the last four seasons:
2022: .281/.327/.410
2023: .283/.346/.383
2024: .273/.335/.373
2025: .297/.345/.394
You know what it’s like to watch a second baseman hit like that. Those are the numbers of a championship second baseman, a Sanchez, a Scutaro, a Panik. The second base position for the Giants is less a collection of individuals and more like a concept. It’s filled by different people, like the different Doctors Who and Greens Lantern.
Those numbers don’t scream “superstar,” though, and while Hoerner won’t get the mega deal of a true superstar, he’ll earn enough to make it harder for the Cubs to acquire and/or retain a superstar. He’s a fantastic player, but he can’t power an offense by himself. And he might make the kind of money that could go to one of those types of hitters. With Bregman and Shaw in place, it’s almost the pragmatic (if cold) decision.
And if they’re willing to let him walk, they might as well get something for him before he leaves.
Why the Giants would want Nico Hoerner
Because he’s good at baseball. He would instantly give the Giants one of the best defensive infields in the game, and he’d be the pest at the top of the order that the lineup has been missing. He’s a free agent after the season, but his timeline fits in with the rest of the lineup’s. He’d be helping the team during the same window. The Giants would be more apt to offer a long-term deal for a player like that, perhaps, than other organizations. He’s a local guy, too, going to Stanford after growing up in Oakland, which probably can’t hurt.
An acquisition of Hoerner could also be a one-and-done, like the Giants’ last big acquisition from the Cubs, Kris Bryant. If a deal can get done without one of the Giants’ top two prospects (Bryce Eldridge, Josuar González), the team could worry about this season first, then figure out future rosters later.
Either way, he’s a perfect fit for next season’s roster. Anything beyond that can be addressed at a later date. Just get the good baseball man now, and worry about the rest later.
Why it will never happen
Because it’s a bad look. Because the Cubs should keep Hoerner and improve their roster in a different way. Because every reason why he’s perfect for the Giants is a reason he’s perfect for the team he’s currently on, other than the proximity to his hometown.
Why it could happen
Never underestimate the ability of an owner to play three-dimensional shogi with himself. If he’s not going to sign Hoerner after the season, the team might as well trade him now, when he wouldn’t be missed as much in the everyday lineup.
Or maybe that’s unfair. Maybe Kyle Tucker’s market has softened enough to where he’s back in the Cubs’ range. If they can pay just one of Tucker or Hoerner for the next few years, Tucker would be the better bet, and the decision to trade the latter wouldn’t seem nearly as wacky. They can afford both, sure, but there’s at least some logic to dissect there.
Verdict
Nah. Owner brains can go from salty to pickled overnight, but the only way this would make sense is if the Giants had a similar logjam at a position of need for the Cubs. As in, it would only work if the Giants had all sorts of high-octane relievers to help the Cubs win now, or if they had so many starters, they could afford to trade Robbie Ray in the last year of his contract. Maybe there’s some sort of three-way deal that allows the Giants to trade prospects for those types of players. But in a traditional two-way deal, these are win-now teams that don’t match up well in terms of surplus and remaining need.
Focus on Brendan Donovan instead, as the Cardinals aren’t likely to contend in 2026, and they’re unlikely to make him a centerpiece of whatever’s next. Hoerner suddenly became a less unrealistic trade possibility once the Cubs signed Bregman. But that doesn’t mean he became a realistic one.