"Time makes fools of us all" - The Kyle Schwarber Thread

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

Schwarber is now SECOND in the NL among outfielders with a 6.3 UZR. He's sandwiched between Cain and CarGo.

 

He's only bad at outfield during national broadcasts. He's just fine every other game.

The fact that CarGo is somehow third shows how weird UZR is.

[Sammy Sofa]

What's the general take on Schwarber this season?

 

Like, my dumb opinion would be that he seems...fine. And seemingly a decent number of people here were expecting/hoping for a breakout season for him.

 

Obviously, having a 30 dong-mashing, 3 fWAR, LH platoon OF isn't a BAD thing...but what were some of the smarter baseball people here hoping to see from him at this point instead?

[imb]

What's the general take on Schwarber this season?

 

Like, my dumb opinion would be that he seems...fine. And seemingly a decent number of people here were expecting/hoping for a breakout season for him.

 

Obviously, having a 30 dong-mashing, 3 fWAR, LH platoon OF isn't a BAD thing...but what were some of the smarter baseball people here hoping to see from him at this point instead?

 

I'm not real sure what to think going forward. his WAR is skewed a little by the defense which you probably can't expect to rate this high moving forward. If you think the shift is responsible for his low BABIP then this is probably best case scenario unless he can cut 6-7 percent off his k rate.

[Cubswin11]

What's the general take on Schwarber this season?

 

Like, my dumb opinion would be that he seems...fine. And seemingly a decent number of people here were expecting/hoping for a breakout season for him.

 

Obviously, having a 30 dong-mashing, 3 fWAR, LH platoon OF isn't a BAD thing...but what were some of the smarter baseball people here hoping to see from him at this point instead?

He’s been about what I would’ve expected. Maybe .010-.015 points lower on batting average. I think he still has a decent hit tool and think he’s more of a ~.265 and not sub .250 hitter (I know we’re only talking probably like 10 hits over the course of a year). Would be nice to see the Ks come down 2-4% at the least as well. But overall he’s about what I expected and there’s a little more in there. He seems to be in a bit of a slump lately, so hopefully he has a strong final ~45 games.

 

Edit:

 

His expected BA is .258 vs the .245 he’s at and xWOBA is .369 vs the .348 it’s at. So yeah if he gets in line with what he “should” be that’s pretty much who I expect him to be. Plus I feel like some of the Ks are due to the absolute horrible zone he’s been given this year. Not only has he gotten called for Ks on balls that aren’t strikesI’m sure it’s fucked him up to be swinging at more horsefeathers than he likes to because of horsefeathers umps.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Cubswin11

[jersey cubs fan]

He's a little less than I hoped but right around what I more or less expected. Pretty good season for a 25 y/o. Comfortably leading the team in BB with very good power without sucking on defense is very nice.

[minnesotacubsfan]

More dongs plz

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Overall, he's about what I was hoping for. I agree he's probably been a little unlucky with his strike zone. He's made real strides in making more contact and especially closing holes in his swing in the zone. He's also showing a better eye at the plate. I think his most significant changes have been with some of his batted ball problems. He's hitting more line drives and he's cut down his infield fly ball rate. Those were legitimate problems last year. I think his BABIP is about right. He's probably not going to BABIP .300 because of the shift, but there's no reason he can't be close to it. He would be wise to start getting the ball in the air more often and eschewing Chili Ball.

 

Defensively I think his value is probably right this year because of how incredibly valuable his arm has been. But he's also been lucky to have so many opportunities to make plays with his arm. He probably won't have as many going forward. So that makes up for any poor luck on offense. Bring the offense up some and the defense down some and that's probably who he really is and it equals out to what his WAR is saying right now.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I agree this is probably best-case scenario, too. His arm makes up for him being a big lug in a corner outfield spot. But he's not going to have much value on defense. His power is topped out unless he starts getting the ball in the air more often. He's always going to strike out because he is so patient and gets into deep counts. He will never make a lot of contact. He might BABIP his way to a more valuable season or have an insane HR/FB season. But this is who he is. I have no hopes of him being more.

[jersey cubs fan]

I agree this is probably best-case scenario, too. His arm makes up for him being a big lug in a corner outfield spot. But he's not going to have much value on defense. His power is topped out unless he starts getting the ball in the air more often. He's always going to strike out because he is so patient and gets into deep counts. He will never make a lot of contact. He might BABIP his way to a more valuable season or have an insane HR/FB season. But this is who he is. I have no hopes of him being more.

you agree with yourself?

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I agree this is probably best-case scenario, too. His arm makes up for him being a big lug in a corner outfield spot. But he's not going to have much value on defense. His power is topped out unless he starts getting the ball in the air more often. He's always going to strike out because he is so patient and gets into deep counts. He will never make a lot of contact. He might BABIP his way to a more valuable season or have an insane HR/FB season. But this is who he is. I have no hopes of him being more.

you agree with yourself?

 

I was meaning to agree with TBS Playoffs Insider. But, yes.

[CubinNY]

Schwarber getting hot going into the playoffs would be awsome.

[Regular Show]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

Great call too.

[PackLandVA]

:lol:

[Sammy Sofa]

Man, I wish the Sox brought those uniforms back full time.

[Stu]

I preferred the call on the Sox feed. Paraphrasing:

 

Alderman: “So Hawk we’d like to present you with this ..”

 

Hawk: “uh oh”

 

Lol

[We Got The Whole 9]

Speaking of Hawk, he said Tim Anderson is an MVP candidate

[PackLandVA]

Speaking of Hawk, he said Tim Anderson is an MVP candidate

 

Team MVP? Sure, maybe.

[Clem Fandango]

Speaking of Hawk, he said Tim Anderson is an MVP candidate

 

*looks up Anderson's B-R page*

 

[illiniguy]

He and Stone were penciling in Anderson and Moncada for at least 60 homers a year. Also said they would be, the best middle infield in baseball. I assume they think the Houston Astros are a football team.

[Tim]

He and Stone were penciling in Anderson and Moncada for at least 60 homers a year. Also said they would be, the best middle infield in baseball. I assume they think the Houston Astros are a football team.

Cleveland when Ramirez is at 2b?

[Sammy Sofa]

And yet another bizarre thing that's bit the Cubs this season:

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-silliest-thing-about-kyle-schwarber/

 

Yet Schwarber, on the year, has a wRC+ of 117. In just high-leverage situations, he has a wRC+ of — and I’m not making this up — -62. That is the number “62” with a negative sign in front of it. You’re wondering how that compares to the rest of the league. Here is the answer, given a minimum of 50 high-leverage plate appearances.

 

High Leverage, 2018

Player wRC+

Kyle Schwarber -62

Alcides Escobar -3

Chris Davis 9

Mallex Smith 10

James McCann 11

Brian Dozier 13

Addison Russell 15

Kendrys Morales 15

Adam Engel 17

Gorkys Hernandez 26

 

That table, I imagine, speaks for itself. So will the following tables. For a different angle on the above, consider that Schwarber has a wRC+ of -62 in high-leverage situations, and a wRC+ of 137 in low- and medium-leverage situations. The difference there is -199 points. This is the bottom of another leaderboard.

 

wRC+ By Leverage, 2018

Player Low/Med High Difference

Kyle Schwarber 137 -62 -199

Mallex Smith 129 10 -119

Kendrys Morales 119 15 -103

Joey Wendle 128 28 -100

Javier Baez 143 53 -90

Cody Bellinger 130 46 -84

Willson Contreras 109 26 -83

Nick Markakis 125 42 -83

Brian Dozier 95 13 -82

Brandon Belt 115 40 -75

 

Coincidentally, there are actually three Cubs among those ten players, but Schwarber has the greatest difference, and it’s not even close. The gap between Schwarber and Smith is 80 points. Schwarber’s splits are downright laughable, if you’re able to take a step back, and they remain laughable if you extend the window back to 2002, which is as far as our FanGraphs splits stretch. Here are the worst single-season high-leverage wRC+ marks.

 

High Leverage, 2002-2018

Player Season wRC+

Kyle Schwarber 2018 -62

Ryan Zimmerman 2016 -54

Neifi Perez 2002 -35

Royce Clayton 2003 -26

Casey Kotchman 2012 -24

Mark Ellis 2011 -24

Chris Young 2009 -20

Justin Smoak 2012 -20

Pedro Florimon 2013 -20

Kurt Suzuki 2011 -17

 

Right. And now here are the biggest (negative) differences between high-leverage hitting and low- and medium-leverage hitting.

 

wRC+ By Leverage, 2002-2018

Player Season Low/Med High Difference

Kyle Schwarber 2018 137 -62 -199

Jim Thome 2008 135 -5 -140

David Wright 2013 171 33 -138

Ryan Zimmerman 2016 81 -54 -135

Hideki Matsui 2007 136 3 -133

Jose Cruz 2003 119 -14 -132

Craig Biggio 2004 116 -15 -131

Mike Moustakas 2015 136 8 -128

Jason Varitek 2004 137 15 -121

Richard Hidalgo 2003 156 35 -121

 

It’s Schwarber by a mile. It’s Schwarber by the length of the average Kyle Schwarber home run. We haven’t seen anything quite like this in recent history. Granted, that’s somewhat arbitrary — for example, Baseball Reference uses different cutoffs when determining their leverage splits. But there’s no getting around the general message that Schwarber’s timing has been lousy. In low- and medium-leverage plate appearances, Schwarber has struck out 28% of the time. In high-leverage spots, he’s struck out 39% of the time. He has 43 extra-base hits and zero extra-base hits, respectively. His respective hard-hit rates are 43% and 15%. It’s not as if Schwarber has simply been the victim of bad luck. His performance has been legitimately bad in the most important situations. That doesn’t have to mean anything about his actual talent, but it’s a fact of how this season has gone.

 

In just those high-leverage plate appearances, Schwarber as a hitter has been about 16 runs below average. That translates to being about 2.5 wins below average. That’s basically the whole of it, there — if Schwarber had just been his regular self, the Cubs today would have a more comfortable cushion. You could say the same kind of thing about anything this year that hasn’t gone the Cubs’ way, but there’s an important thing here to remember. There’s how good a team actually is, and there’s how well a team times its good performances. The latter is much, much harder to control, but it can end up making a big difference in the standings nevertheless.

 

TL; DR version: baseball is dumb and the worst.

[CyHawk_Cub]

Reading that made me throw up in my mouth a little. Thanks mojo.

[soccer10k]

Was just coming to post that article.

 

Also not surprising at all that Javy and Willy also have huge splits between low/medium leverage and high leverage. Both seem to go up there anxious in a big spot like they'll swing at anything.

[TMan92]

Was just coming to post that article.

 

Also not surprising at all that Javy and Willy also have huge splits between low/medium leverage and high leverage. Both seem to go up there anxious in a big spot like they'll swing at anything.

 

Pretty much explains the offense.

[Cubswin11]