NEWSLETTER
While I still fall into the “no decision is necessary yet, just let things play out this year” camp, I will admit to thinking about Owen Caissie’s long-term spot on the Chicago Cubs. He’s not alone in that, of course, because the Cubs have a LOT of high-quality positional talent rising and overlapping at Double-A and Triple-A, and then an increasingly full big league roster. They can’t all be accommodated as starters, and you very much hope that’s a log-jam the Cubs have to deal with in a couple years.
In the meantime, though, you do want to start thinking about it. You aren’t assuming that these guys will definitely become big-league-starting-caliber players, but where you can start increasing their paths without inhibiting their development, you do it.
With Owen Caissie, then, I’ve thought a lot about what happens to him defensively in the years ahead. I’ve thought about it not only because of the crowding above him and the two corner outfielders who are signed for three more years apiece, but also because Caissie, maybe more than any other Cubs prospect, has the offensive potential to transform a lineup almost single-handedly. It’s not just that Caissie put up a .289/.398/.519/144 wRC+ line at Double-A in his age-20 season (though that’s eye-popping stuff), it’s that his contact quality is elite. It is top-5% stuff, and he pairs it with a very good eye at the plate. The issue, of course, is the swing-and-miss, which will continue to be a work in progress. But the upside is truly special.
He may not get there, as I said, or he may be traded before it matters. But he can do things at the plate that only a handful of players at any level can do. If he becomes who he can become offensively, he’s the kind of bat you accommodate no matter what. So, although he’s just 21 and hasn’t yet played at Triple-A, he deserves long-term consideration.
With that in mind, then, it makes me very happy to see this news out of the Cubs prospect camp in Arizona:
To be sure, this is only an initial step in the process of getting Owen Caissie some first base exposure. Actually playing there in Spring Training games, much less regular season games, seems a long way off. He may take to the position, he may not.
For now, though, I wouldn’t look too far down the road at this being a full-time positional move. Yes, Caissie’s corner outfield defense continues to need development, but he’s shown an aptitude for improvement there. He’s a big, big guy, but he’s also very athletic. I wouldn’t eliminate his time in the outfield until it was absolutely necessary. Moreover, the Cubs have two (top-ten ranked!) first base prospects – Matt Mervis and Haydn McGeary – who project to be splitting first base starts at Triple-A Iowa this year. Assuming Caissie is promoted to Iowa to open the season, then, he would still figure to be a corner outfielder for the most part. He could then pick up occasional starts at first base, while also periodically DH’ing.
The idea here would be just to start the process. To start seeing whether Caissie can play capable first base WHILE you see how this year plays out. The bat is still what’ll dictate his future, but if this or that or this or that happens at the big league level at first base – and first base only – and Caissie is obliterating Triple-A, then the Cubs probably don’t want to be caught flat-footed. Start the process now, and let the year play out.
Longer term, it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever to speculate on whether Caissie winds up at first base. There are too many other considerations, from the outfield group to the DH slot to Christopher Morel’s potential to Cody Bellinger returning to Michael Busch’s role to Caissie’s own offensive development. Owen Caissie should not, at present, be labeled the first baseman of the future or anything like that. You just want to know what paths will be possible when the bell rings, and that process of learning necessarily has to start pretty soon. (And hey, if this coming out gets the Cubs just the tiniest ounce of additional leverage with Scott Boras in the Bellinger talks, that’d be swell.)
And maybe equally important as any of that, if Owen Caissie winds up a top-tier bat who can play capable corner outfield AND capable first base, then he’s all the more valuable to the Cubs long-term. None of this has to end in him landing in any one particular spot necessarily.
