NEWSLETTER
This is remarkable. As in, this is the kind of thing that happens and is very, very much worth remarking upon.
Chicago Cubs outfield prospect Owen Caissie, playing as one of the youngest players in the Double-A Southern League, is putting up ridiculous numbers. He is absolutely crushing the ball at every turn, at least when he’s not striking out at an outrageous clip (cut him some slack: the strikeouts are improving and that league has the pre-tacked sticky ball!). He was already doing some things this year that popped your eyes.
And then tonight he did this:
You can probably tell from the video that Caissie hit that homer extremely hard – my reaction when I saw the clip was basically, “How the heck did that thing get out of the park?”
But what you can’t tell is just how hard. It was an absolute missile:
My god. Jaw dropped. A 117-mph home run. Almost nobody does that.
Here’s the thing to understand about that kind of exit velocity: even just ONE data point tells you a lot. The mere ABILITY to hit the ball that hard is descriptive of a hitter’s potential for power. And when a 20-year-old in Double-A does it, you REALLY start to dream big. I’m blown away right now.
