Nico Hoerner took a lot of phone calls from the agility field at the Cubs’ spring training facility this month, pacing back and forth while talking over the latest in his camp’s contract extension negotiations with the club.
So, when he got the news Monday afternoon that they’d reached an agreement, treading that familiar plot of grass with his phone to his ear, Hoerner didn’t bother masking his feelings.
“So happy that we were able to come to terms and that it’s here,” Hoerner said Thursday before the Cubs’ 4-0 win against the Brewers on Opening Day. “It’s an incredible thing to experience. And I hope it’s not the last deal with this team. This is where I want to be.”
Hoerner’s three-year, $35 million contract extension runs through what would have been his last two years of arbitration first free agent year. The team being motivated to reach an extension says something about its vision for the future. And Hoerner’s commitment reflects his belief in their plan for the coming years.
Hoerner provides one of the few remaining connections to the Cubs’ last championship window, making his debut late in 2019. He even moved into Anthony Rizzo’s old locker and keeps a pair of the former Cubs’ batting gloves in it as “a reminder of what was there before.”
He pointed to Rizzo’s trajectory with the Cubs, coming in during the last rebuild and winning a World Series with the same club.
Hoerner has now lived through the dismantling of that team and back-to-back losing seasons.
It was clear Thursday, however, as Hoerner and shortstop Dansby Swanson turned a momentum-swinging double play to get out of the top of the third inning and then helped the Cubs rallied for four runs in the bottom half, that this is a team on a new trajectory.
“The idea of extending yourself in an organization where you probably didn’t see winning on the horizon, that’s not very attractive to me,” Hoerner said. “So yes, it is a vote of confidence in the direction that the team is going. … One of the most satisfying things I could do in a career would be to be in one place from quote-unquote rebuild to the next championship.”
The Cubs and Hoerner’s camp discussed plenty of different possible extension structures, Hoyer said, including longer contracts. Hoerner said at different points he didn’t expect the deal to come to fruition this year and was at peace with that.
The structure they landed on gives Hoerner stability through the next few years but still leaves “some room for choice,” as Hoerner put it, in his career with the opportunity to hit free agency at 29 years old.
“We could never really get to the place where, on a longer deal, both sides felt like it was the right amount of money,” Hoyer said. “... We may well revisit it at some point, but it’s nice to get that free agent year in to extend our time with him a little bit. And hopefully that leads to a later extension where we do it for a lot longer.”
Hoerner’s extension also gives the Cubs an extra year of Hoerner and Swanson manning the middle infield, a combination that’s already provided defensive highlights.
“It’s so well deserved,” Swanson said. “He puts in so much work. It makes me question what I’m doing sometimes. He really gets after it all the time. And he wants what’s best for this organization, wants what’s best for the guys on the team. And for him to commit himself to be here speaks a lot about him, it speaks a lot about this organization. He’s one of a kind.”
Swanson, who made his Cubs debut Thursday, committed to the club for the long haul, signing a seven-year, $177 million contract this offseason after the Cubs convinced him they were making winning a priority. Hoerner’s extension is an early step in that process.
“That’s a big part of commitment, right? It’s on both ends,” Swanson said. “And they’ve obviously done a good job of putting a team together for not only this year, but for the years to come.”
Hoerner became the first Cub to sign an extension since infielder David Bote inked a five-year, $15 million deal in April of 2019. Starting this offseason, they also engaged in extension talks with outfielder Ian Happ, but they did not reach an agreement.
Happ, a member of the MLB Players Association executive subcommittee, also served as a resource for Hoerner through the process.
“The most fulfilling part as a teammate and a friend, and having been so close with [Hoerner] for so long,” Happ said, “is being able to watch just how excited he is to be here for the next three years.”
