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Owen Caissie Is Progressing More Than We May Have Realized

Cubs Video Owen Caissie feels like he’s been in the Cubs’ system forever, to the point where it’s easy to forget that he’s not even 23 yet. To put it another way, Owen Caissie is younger than Pete Crow-Armstrong (who was in the same draft class as Owen) and Matt Shaw, despite being acquired before […]

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1 month ago

June 21, 2025

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Owen Caissie Is Progressing More Than We May Have Realized

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Owen Caissie feels like he’s been in the Cubs’ system forever, to the point where it’s easy to forget that he’s not even 23 yet. To put it another way, Owen Caissie is younger than Pete Crow-Armstrong (who was in the same draft class as Owen) and Matt Shaw, despite being acquired before either of them. With that, I do believe prospect fatigue can creep in, a real-life version of the Toy Story meme where we want to focus on the new and forget the old. Don’t feel like I’m coming at you, I’ve spent more time paying attention to Ivan Brethowr this year than Owen Caissie, and I’ve been the self-anointed captain of the Caissie Fan Club dating back to the 2020 draft!

Beyond just prospect fatigue, however, it’s easy for progress to hide in plain sight. Jumping over to Caissie’s FanGraphs page will show you his 2025 season line. On the year, the left-hander has a pretty darn good 131 wRC+, a .273/.377/.518 batting line, a 13.2 walk rate, and a pretty uninspiring 31.2 strikeout rate. Reading that line lets you know some important things: Caissie has hit the ball really well, but has struck out more than you’d like (and more than he’s done in recent times).

However, I think diving deeper into what our protagonist is doing will help us see that some impressive progress has been happening under the hood, and that, coupled with prospect fatigue, suggests he’s been better than those numbers indicate. To do so, we’ll have to go all the way back to 2024, when Caissie was first promoted to Iowa. Through the MiLB All-Star break, Caissie showed improved contact, striking out 27.8% of the time, while also posting a solid 113 wRC+. He wasn’t hitting the ball out of the ballpark, but it was progress.

After the ASB, something changed in Caissie. The wRC+ remained virtually identical, as after the pause, he had a 117 wRC+, but the change was hidden; Caissie started hitting the ball in the air more and with authority. We can see this reflected in his isolated slugging, which jumped nearly .80 points, from .164 to .240; a massive shift. We can see this just in the raw numbers as well, as he hit eight home runs through his first 331 plate appearances and then 11 over his last 218. There was an associated launch angle shift that helped this out. Not everything was perfect, as this shift also saw Caissie’s K% and contact rate go backward. He was sacrificing some contact for home runs. But the progress was happening.

Entering this year, and being blocked at the highest level, Caissie was again placed in Iowa. As I’ve already pointed out, Caissie is having a better season in terms of wRC+, jumping from good-not-great to being a top-10 wRC+ hitter in all of Triple-A, but the K% appears to be improving as the year has moved along. According to Bryan Smith, Caissie has dropped his whiff rate for three consecutive months, and his K% in June is currently sitting at 28.4%. This is right around where Caissie was in the first half of last season, which suggests he’s getting more comfortable with his approach and swing change and seeing the ball better.

As the year has gone on, there’s been a significant increase in zone-swing, in not chasing pitching out of the zone and a downward trend in strikeouts on the whole have gone with it. By looking just at the 2025 K%, you’d come away thinking he’s not making progress, but these trends have been occurring all year. By swinging more often in the zone, he can avoid getting into bad counts. There’s been a further evolution in his approach over his last 100 plate appearances or so.

If you’re going to hold out hope that the Cubs’ prospect is going to magically drop to a sub-25% strikeout rate, then I have bad news for you; it’s not going to happen. He’s likely to always run inflated K rates; it’s a feature not a bug. But with the improvements in his launch angle, his willingness to hit more home runs, with the excellent exit velocity, he’s more than capable of trading some strikeouts for home runs. The approach change of swinging more often in the zone while whiffing less will help to keep these down. He’s a patient hitter, and has probably been too patient. Jumping on strikes early in the count (and specifically, fastballs) will help eliminate these issues.

There’s a common saying in prospect-land and that “development is not linear” and I think the last one and a half months of Caissie’s time in Iowa can help show that. It looked like he had taken a step forward with his contact rates at the beginning of last year only to look like he had taken two steps backwards. But within those steps we can see the progression of his power, his swing, and his approach. His contact rate over his last 100 PA’s mirrors that of his first-100, just now with much more power and damage. We’re seeing the best version of the outfielder right now, someone who’s capable of keeping the strikeouts in check just enough to where he is a menace at the plate.

If you’re concerned that all of this is just him being a repeater at the level, I think that’s a fair critique but one that I’m not entirely sure is the answer here. With a swing change and an approach change, as well as being just 22-years-of-age (as of this writing, his birthday is just in a few days) I believe that this is likely something else; that Caissie has been specifically working on fixing his swing and his approach. To assuage those fears a bit more, Michael Busch was already 24 in his first go at Triple-A with the Dodgers when he posted a middling 111 wRC+ only to come back a year later at the no-as-ripe-age of 25, hitting to the tune of a 155 wRC+ in his second go. While anecdotal, his career has been just fine, and it’s pretty clear that progress was made over those two years and it wasn’t just repeating. I think we’re seeing something more akin to what Michael Busch was able to do over his time than just saying “well, he’s just a repeater”. Nuance is key.

What happens with Owen Caissie and the Cubs will be interesting moving forward. There’s an argument to be made that if the Cubs are unwilling to spend on Kyle Tucker that their best internal option in right-field next year may be the former 2020 second-round selection which creates an interesting conundrum for the team as the deadline approaches. If they’re willing to pony up for Tucker, it means that Caissie may not realistically have a spot with the organization if they view him behind potential DH Moises Ballesteros in the prospect pecking order. As well, it’s likely that teams will also be privy to the approach improvement and that the will coming asking for him as a primary return in any trade. How the Cubs approach that this will be important and could help signal how they internally feel about his long term projections.

The overall point, however, is that while it’s easy to look at the data and think that he’s had a down-season or hasn’t lived up to the hype, that I think there’s things occurring below the surface that point to the outfielder rounding into the player we hoped for. And whether or not this aides the Cubs directly on the field (either in 2025 or 2026) or through trade, that real progress is happening. Don’t let a shiny new toy or a full-season line cloud the change; Owen Caissie is turning into a much better player right before our eyes.

What do you think of Owen Caissie? Do you think he’s tradebait? Are you encouraged with the approach improvements? Let us know in the comment section below

Interested in learning more about the Chicago Cubs’ top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!

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Ntekpere honored as Second Team Academic All-American | APG State News

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July 27, 2025

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Training sessions at World Aquatics Masters Championships cancelled due to Sentosa’s water quality issues

SINGAPORE – The water quality issue that affected the World Aquatics Championships open water swimming events at Sentosa earlier in July has also struck the World Aquatics Masters Championships, with the morning and afternoon open water training sessions cancelled on July 25. World Aquatics sent a message to participants and explained that the decision was […]

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19 minutes ago

July 27, 2025

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World Aquatics sent a message to participants and explained that the decision was made because of “water quality levels exceeding acceptable thresholds”.

The world governing body added that a technical meeting is planned for 4.45pm and that it will “continue monitoring water quality” and provide more information, before the competition starts on July 26 with the women’s 3km race in the waters off Palawan Beach. The men’s 3km event is scheduled for a day later.

The July 26-Aug 22 World Aquatics Masters Championships is expected to feature about 6,000 athletes from around 100 countries and territories aged 25 and above, competing in swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and open water swimming.

The Straits Times has contacted the local organising committee for comment.

At the World Aquatics Championships, the men and women’s 10km open water swimming events were postponed due to “unacceptable water quality results”.

The women’s 10km initially scheduled for July 15 was moved to July 16, 10.15am, about three hours after the men’s 10km, because water samples drawn at the race site two days earlier showed “exceeding levels” of the Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.

However, results from a July 15 sample showed that the levels were still above acceptable thresholds, causing the men and women’s flag-offs to be further delayed to 1pm and 4pm respectively on July 16. The competition proceeded as scheduled from then on.

E. coli is a bacteria commonly found in the intestines of people and animals. While most strains are harmless, some can cause serious illness such as diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and sepsis.

According to World Aquatics regulations, E. coli levels in ocean and transitional (tidal) waters must not exceed 250 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres.

ST understands that World Aquatics adopts stricter water quality standards compared to guidelines set for recreational swimming, given the prolonged exposure faced by athletes during competition.

Earlier, World Aquatics executive director Brent Nowicki had noted that water quality disruptions were not unprecedented, with the Paris 2024 Olympics men’s triathlon postponed hours before the scheduled start due to pollution levels in the River Seine.

ST also reported that while the National Environment Agency does not usually assess marine water quality based on E. coli levels, it has started monitoring the bacteria levels at Sentosa’s beaches following the recent incidents.

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Here are all the winners from the 2025 HBCU Sports Awards

Saturday marked another moment of recognition and pride across Black College athletics with the 2025 HBCU Sports Awards presentation. Hosted by HBCU Sports Founding Publisher and Editor Kenn Rashad alongside Jarrett Hoffman and Chris Stevens, the annual virtual event spotlighted the very best in HBCU sports. It honored athletes in 23 categories, coaches in 12, […]

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30 minutes ago

July 27, 2025

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Saturday marked another moment of recognition and pride across Black College athletics with the 2025 HBCU Sports Awards presentation.

Hosted by HBCU Sports Founding Publisher and Editor Kenn Rashad alongside Jarrett Hoffman and Chris Stevens, the annual virtual event spotlighted the very best in HBCU sports. It honored athletes in 23 categories, coaches in 12, and administrators in 10 from institutions across the Division I, Division II, and NAIA landscape.

In addition to celebrating competitive excellence, the show also recognized extraordinary service by presenting this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards to two iconic contributors, Patricia Cage-Bibbs and Rob Brodway.

Below is the complete list of winners from the 2025 HBCU Sports Awards:

2025 HBCU Sports Awards Winners

Women’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year
Spirit Morgan, North Carolina A&T

Men’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year
Joseph Briscoe, Virginia State

Women’s Track & Field Runner of the Year
Shaneal Clarke-Giddings, Lincoln (Mo.)

Men’s Track & Field Runner of the Year
Brian Kemei, Morehouse

Women’s Track & Field Sprinter of the Year
Kevell Byrd, Dillard

Men’s Track & Field Sprinter of the Year
Jamarion Stubbs, Alabama State

Women’s Volleyball Player of the Year
Kiersten Eggleton, West Virginia State

Women’s Tennis Player of the Year
Sofya Chursina, South Carolina State

Men’s Tennis Player of the Year
David Jeanne-Grandinot, Alabama State

Softball Player of the Year
Taylor Ames-Alexander, South Carolina St.

Baseball Player of the Year
Cardell Thibodeaux, Southern

Women’s Golfer of the Year
Paris Fieldings, Howard

Men’s Golfer of the Year
Jose Berenguel, Arkansas-Pine Bluff

Bowler of the Year
Maya Avilez, North Carolina A&T

Women’s Soccer Player of the Year
Olivia Ankrom, Shaw

Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year
Shamia Jones, Alabama State

Men’s Cross Country Runner of the Year
Brian Kemei, Morehouse

Women’s Basketball Player of the Year
Diamond Johnson, Norfolk State

Men’s Basketball Player of the Year
Blake Harper, Howard

Defensive Football Player of the Year
Elijah Williams, Morgan State

Offensive Football Player of the Year
Jada Byers, Virginia Union

Lifetime Achievement Award: Female
Patricia Cage-Bibbs

Lifetime Achievement Award: Male
Rod Broadway

Baseball Coach of the Year
Jonathan Hernandez, Bethune-Cookman

Bowling Coach of the Year
Tiffany Clark, Prairie View A&M

Cross Country Coach of the Year
Clyde Duncan Sr., Texas Southern

Football Coach of the Year
Chennis Berry, South Carolina State

Golf Coach of the Year
Sam Puryear, Howard

Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year
Larry Vickers, Norfolk State

Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year
Tony Madlock, Alabama State

Soccer Coach of the Year
Brent Leiba, Howard

Softball Coach of the Year
Vernon Bland, Prairie View A&M

Tennis Coach of the Year
Anuk Christiansz, Alabama State

Track & Field Coach of the Year
Allen Johnson, North Carolina A&T

Women’s Volleyball Coach of the Year
David Brooks, Delaware State

Best Social Media Presence
Grambling State

Broadcaster of the Year
Charles Edmond, Alcorn State

Band of the Year
Jackson State

Sports Information Director of the Year
Derek Bryant, Howard

Conference Media Relations Director of the Year
Andrew Roberts, SWAC

Conference Commissioner of the Year
Jacqie McWilliams, CIAA

Athletic Conference of the Year
Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)

Female Student-Athlete of the Year
Kesmat El Tawil, Alabama State

Male Student-Athlete of the Year
Christopher Flippin, Maryland-Eastern Shore

Athletic Director of the Year
Ashley Robinson, Jackson State

Athletic Program of the Year
Alabama State

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Montana State’s Rob McManus places 6th, Owen Smith 9th in steeplechase at World University Games | Bobcats Track and Field

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July 27, 2025

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Mapping myths: Researchers create first milky sea database

For centuries, sailors have returned from voyages with tales of eerie, steady-glowing oceans. These episodes would sometimes last for months, atop water capable of glowing in a bucket, deep beneath a ship’s keel. While the earliest accounts were written off as tall tales, the stories are true. Named “milky seas” by the explorers who first […]

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1 hour ago

July 27, 2025

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Named “milky seas” by the explorers who first documented it, the phenomenon is a rare event of marine bioluminescence. A new database created in collaboration between Colorado State University’s department of atmospheric science and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere has brought together historical eyewitness accounts for the first time.

“Milky seas describe very large regions of ocean that produce a sustained and widespread glow, often appearing to extend to the horizon on dark, moon-free nights,” CIRA Director and atmospheric science Professor Steven Miller wrote in an email-based interview.

The journal Advancing Earth and Space Sciences recently published an article recounting the database’s development, which drew from 415 individual observations of milky seas over the past 400 years.

“The oldest one that I was able to find goes back to 1615, and it was one of the first-ever voyages of the British East India Company,” said Justin Hudson, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of atmospheric science and the paper’s first author. “So there’s a good chance it’s actually the earliest account ever in English.”

While sorting through the historical accounts, Hudson had to differentiate the individual sightings to make sure each milky sea event was unique, rather than two separate people noting the same event. In the end, the database’s construction was guided by a defined methodology that outlined specific characteristics of a milky sea event.

Every event had to feature “a steady, nonflashing gray/white/green-blue/turquoise glow coming from the nighttime ocean surface,” the paper reads. The event also has to be widespread across the ocean’s horizon and occur within nondisturbed water. A shape line of demarcation must also occur between the glowing and nonglowing water, fade in and out of brightness and have a calm ocean surface. Lastly, the sea must return to normal, dark water once the sun or moon rises.

After categorizing the observations by the database’s criteria, Miller and Hudson were able to estimate both the rate of milky sea occurrences and the general geographic region they occur within.

“Milky seas may occur one to two times per year globally, but they are by no means a regular occurrence and there may be many years between events,” Miller wrote. “Based on historical sightings and, more recently, satellite observations, we know that they tend to form more often in the northwest Indian Ocean and Indonesia.”

Courtesy of Justin Hudson and Steven D. Miller, Earth and Space Science, 2025

While the exact cause of the bioluminescent event is unknown, bacteria is theorized to play a major role in its development.

“Based off of the fact that it’s a consistent, nonflashing light … and it covers such a large area and sort of other various qualities, we think it’s caused by bacteria,” Hudson said. “For the largest event we know of, basically, if it was only a centimeter thick, it would have one mole of bacteria involved. And if you work out how much it could weigh, you get over a million kilograms of bacteria.”

The geographical regions where the events occur most frequently experience weather patterns that result in an environment bacteria thrives in. In the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean Dipole causes a fluctuation in sea surface temperatures across the western and eastern sides of the sea, which are categorized by positive, negative and neutral phases.

“It is a sea surface temperature pattern that happens in the Indian Ocean where one side will have cooler sea surface temperatures than normal, and one side will have warmer than normal, and whichever side has warmer temperatures, that’s really good at making (sure) there’s more evaporation, (as) hotter air wants to rise,” Hudson said.

Bacteria thrives in warmer ocean temperatures, which Hudson theorized causes milky seas to occur more frequently in the region the Dipole is most present.

“We think that this phase, the positive phase, in the Indian Ocean Dipole (is) associated with that cool, nutrient-rich water from down below coming up in that region, and it causes milky seas to happen at a much higher rate than you would expect if it didn’t have an impact,” Hudson said.

Miller’s interest in the fabled phenomenon began in 2005 when he published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discussing the first detection of a milky sea event through satellite imaging technology.

“It was pretty amazing to think that we could do this from space, and especially for a form of bioluminescence that had been more a part of the maritime folklore than of scientific knowledge,” Miller wrote. “Since then, I’ve been hooked on the topic and was excited to work with a new generation of satellite technology that might be even more capable of detecting and measuring milky seas.”

Combined with the newfound knowledge from the database, this satellite technology has allowed the team to chart milky sea occurrences from 2017 that were previously undocumented.

“As part of my work, I do what’s called a Hindcasting model — (a) forecast model, just going backwards,” Hudson said. “I actually was able to predict a previously unknown milky sea event.”

The ultimate goal of the researchers is to predict an event before it occurs with enough time to chart a scientific expedition in the predicted region, with the hopes of observing a milky sea in person, firsthand.

“(We want to) kind of work (with) other scientists internationally, to form a team who would be able to go out there, … get on a boat and sort of combine all their expertise to be able to, like, sample the water, study it and figure out what’s going on (and) how does this fit into everything else?” Hudson said.

Understanding this phenomenon more closely will provide not only more information about the suspected bacteria itself, but also hold broader implications for understanding the ocean’s ecosystem in its entirety.

“(We’re) learning more about how such a dramatic population explosion of nature’s tiniest, simplest and oldest organisms could conspire to form a signal (one) large and strong enough to be (seen) from outer space, and what that is telling us about how major components of the Earth’s system ‘talk to each other’ and interact may hold very important insights to the future of our planet,” Miller wrote.

Reach Katie Fisher at science@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.

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Men’s Water Polo Team Drops 2025 Schedule

UC San Diego men’s water polo team has revealed their 2025 schedule, entering their third year in the Big West conference. The season kicks off with the Triton Invitational from August 29-31, featuring top-ranked teams. Home games include notable matchups against Stanford and LMU, along with six tournaments and four away games. The Big West […]

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1 hour ago

July 27, 2025

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By the Numbers

2024 record: 17 wins, 12 losses
Big West conference victories: 3 against UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and Cal State Fullerton

State of Play

Home games will be played at Canyonview Aquatic Center, drawing large crowds, especially during student return week.
The Tritons are the defending champions of the Battle of the Kings against LMU.

What’s Next

As anticipation builds for the season opener and home matches, the Tritons aim to improve upon last year’s performance. The team is also positioned to compete strongly in the Big West Championship and potentially earn an NCAA bid.

Bottom Line

The 2025 season presents a significant opportunity for UC San Diego’s men’s water polo team to build on previous successes and deepen their competitive edge in the Big West, ultimately striving for a berth in the NCAA Championship.

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