Owen Caissie: Up-And-Coming Dynasty Player

For many of us, when we have our eye on a prospect in the minors and see him raking all season, we are left waiting for the parent club to finally see what everyone else sees and promote him to The Show.

That was the case for the many dynasty league owners when it came to Chicago Cubs outfielder Owen Caissie. All he has done all season is smash the ball for home runs, yet week after week, he remained in Triple-A. Well, the wait is finally over as the Cubs promoted Caissie earlier this week and immediately had him in the starting lineup.

Caissie is not the perfect prospect. If he were, he would have been up a long time ago. But he is a very good prospect whose playing time was blocked due to the amount of depth in the Chicago outfield.

Time to take a look at Owen Caissie and see why he is an up-and-coming dynasty player.

Career Statistics

*Through Thursday

Road to the Show

The San Diego Padres drafted Owen Caissie in 2000 with the 45th overall selection, making Caissie the first Canadian player to be selected in that draft. After signing, Caissie had to remain in Canada to train as the minor league season was wiped out due to COVID.

While Caissie was drafted by the Padres, he never put on a uniform with any of the team’s affiliates, as he was traded to the Cubs in December as part of the package that sent Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini to San Diego.

Cassie started the 2021 season in Rookie ball and ended the year in Class A, and has progressed basically one level per year until making his debut with the Cubs this past week. While in the minors, Caissie played a total of 499 games and slashed .280/.384/.489 with 81 homers, 298 RBI, and 33 steals. This season at Triple-A Iowa, he was slashing .289/.389/.566 with 22 homers and 52 RBI in 93 before joining the Cubs.

The Tools

• Hitting

Owen Caissie is an interesting hitter. On one hand, he has a high strikeout rate, thanks in part to a long swing. In the minors, he had a 29% strikeout rate, and this season it was at 28.2%. Opposing teams have taken advantage of the fact that Caissie can be a tad too aggressive at the plate. But at the same time, Caissie has a strong knowledge of the strike zone. This season, his walk rate at Triple-A Iowa was 13% and his career walk rate down on the farm is 14%.

Considering his career minor league average is .280 and his OBP is .384 in the minors, I think he can be a .260/.350 hitter in the majors. Basically, when it comes to the AVG/OBP department, Caissie will be average – he is not going to kill you in those two areas, but he is not going to compete with the league leaders there either. The problem with Caissie right now is his splits against left-handed pitchers vs. right-handed pitchers.

A left-hander, Caissie rocks vs. righties as he slashed .312/.402/.637 against them at Iowa this year. But against lefties, he is a completely different hitter, slashing .235/.369/.388. Amazingly, in 103 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers, he pulled the ball in the air only once. He isn’t going to suddenly get better in that area against major league pitchers.

For now, expect Caissie to sit against left-handed pitchers. But down the road, I expect him to make the required adjustments and become serviceable against lefties and not be part of a platoon system.

• Power

The power department is where Caissie is going to shine. During his minor league career, he has averaged one homer every 22.4 at-bats thanks to his tremendous raw power – raw power that he is really just now tapping into. This is a player who can easily hit 30 homers per season.

When you look inside his numbers this year, they explain just how much power he generates. His max exit velocity was 113.3 mph, and he topped 110 mph 11 times this season. His average EV was 91.2 mph, while his hard hit% was 51.5%. There are a host of players who can post those types of numbers, but Caissie is able to do damage as he does a good job of lifting the ball. He had a 35.5% fly ball rate at Iowa compared to a 38.1% ground ball rate.

• Speed

Coming in at 6-foot-3, Owen Caissie is not a lumbering player on the base paths. He is actually pretty quick and will be able to steal some bases. But I don’t see him becoming a major base stealer. While he has stolen 33 career bases, he has also been thrown out 23 times. A 59% success rate in the minors is not a great sign that he will become an above-average base stealer in the majors.

He may be able to swipe a bag here and there, but I don’t see him being a player who regularly reached double digits in steals every season.

The Verdict

An interesting fact about Caissie is that as he has progressed through the Cubs system, his prospect rankings have fallen. In 2022 and 2023, only Baseball Prospectus (BP) had him ranked as a top 100 prospect, ranking him at #67 and #80 ahead of those two seasons. In 2024, he broke into the Baseball America rankings at #47 and MLB at #47 while BP ranked him at #65.

Before the start of this season, Baseball America ranked Caissie as the 64th best prospect, MLB had him at #54, and BP ranked him at #77. Why the drop in the rankings?

Well, in 2022 in Double-A, Caissie slashed .289/.398/.519, leading Baseball America and MLB to finally put him into their top 100 rankings. But in 2023 at the Triple-A level, Caissie’s numbers fell a bit as he slashed .278/.375/.472 with 19 homers and 75 RBI. But it would be wise to take into account that he was, on average, 5.4 years younger than his competition. At Triple-A this season, he was slashing .289/.389/.566 with 22 homers and 52 RBI in 93 games.

I expect he will struggle at first with the Cubs and even be a depth player, getting three to four starts per week to give the other outfielders a breather. Eventually, either later this year or for 2026, Caissie will become a mainstay in the lineup unless he is traded. Then he will become a mainstay in that team’s lineup. Caissie has shown the ability to make adjustments during his time in the minors, and there is no reason to think he won’t be able to do so at the major league level and provide at least 30 homers per year.

Thanks for reading, and come back again in two weeks. (A week off for your favorite dynasty writer next week.)