It will take precisely one game for Owen Caissie to have his homecoming. The Cubs No. 1 prospect, and No. 45 overall prospect in baseball, will make his MLB debut on Thursday against the Toronto Blue Jays, about 35 miles from where he went to high school at Notre Dame Secondary School. So, MLB debut, basically in your hometown, against the best team in the AL, as your team is fighting to get back in its divisional race? There's so much pressure on Caissie that maybe it'll all cancel out and he'll be able just to go out and play ball.
I also hope Caissie isn't unfairly labeled the savior of the season. He might be awesome right off the bat — he certainly got enough reps in the Cubs farm system — but he's still 23 years old and if he takes some time to adjust, Cubs fans may lose patience quickly as every game remaining will feel high stakes.
Cubs outfield needs a spark, and Caissie might supply it
Pete Crow-Armstrong obviously isn't going to lose his starting spot in centerfield — but he has been in a massive slump so far in August. Ian Happ has also been slumping this month and now his OPS is all the way down to .710 on the season. Overall, he's still been a positive-impact player thanks in part to a great walk rate (12.5 percent), but he's scuffling along as we enter the home stretch, and with the Cubs looking for some late-season magic, Caissie getting some reps in the outfield makes sense.
Will a return to his old stomping grounds give fans an early glimpse of the pop Caissie has showed at Triple-A? He's played 220 games there, and hit 41 bombs in that stretch, including 22 this season. The power is real.
Owen Caissie has been plowing through the minor leagues
In 2021, at 18 years old, Caissie joined the Cubs organization at Single-A ball and dominated. By 2023, at 20 years old, he was up to Double-A ball and made it to Triple-A Iowa by the time he was 21. He's spent a lot of time at Triple-A (probably too much, as he was fantastic even in 2024) and a .566 slugging clip with a .955 OPS in 93 games this year was apparently finally enough for him to get the call.
It's a little too perfect that his debut will come in Toronto, a place where the Cubs go just once a year. Even if he goes 0-for-4 and doesn't put a ball in play tonight, he's a winner. He'll be the fourth Canadian-born player to debut in MLB in 2025, joining Tristan Peters, Denzel Clarke and Liam Hicks.