Schwindel - Old & Bad or just Old?

[Bertz]

The projections now see Schwindel as a smidge under league average as a hitter. Also as he's played more his platoon splits have been getting more and more pronounced. That's bad news for his prospects as an everyday guy, but it's looking like he might *really* mash lefties. We could use a guy like that in our 1B/DH mix next year.

[squally1313]

The projections now see Schwindel as a smidge under league average as a hitter. Also as he's played more his platoon splits have been getting more and more pronounced. That's bad news for his prospects as an everyday guy, but it's looking like he might *really* mash lefties. We could use a guy like that in our 1B/DH mix next year.

A slightly below league average hitter without any defensive value who only excels at hitting 15% of the pitchers should never be more than organization depth, especially given that at his age you can't really project any kind of development. I really believe one of the biggest contributors to his success right now is that other teams just haven't bothered to figure out how to pitch to him. That goes away the second you give him any sort of prominent role and/or the Cubs actually start posing any kind of challenge.

 

Our "1B/DH mix" next year should be an every day first baseman and a revolving cast of starters at other positions getting days off.

[jersey cubs fan]

The projections now see Schwindel as a smidge under league average as a hitter. Also as he's played more his platoon splits have been getting more and more pronounced. That's bad news for his prospects as an everyday guy, but it's looking like he might *really* mash lefties. We could use a guy like that in our 1B/DH mix next year.

A slightly below league average hitter without any defensive value who only excels at hitting 15% of the pitchers should never be more than organization depth, especially given that at his age you can't really project any kind of development. I really believe one of the biggest contributors to his success right now is that other teams just haven't bothered to figure out how to pitch to him. That goes away the second you give him any sort of prominent role and/or the Cubs actually start posing any kind of challenge.

 

Our "1B/DH mix" next year should be an every day first baseman and a revolving cast of starters at other positions getting days off.

Yes, please stop suggesting this guy play a role in next year's team on purpose. He's the kind of guy you play on accident when everybody else is gone.

[Bertz]

The projections now see Schwindel as a smidge under league average as a hitter. Also as he's played more his platoon splits have been getting more and more pronounced. That's bad news for his prospects as an everyday guy, but it's looking like he might *really* mash lefties. We could use a guy like that in our 1B/DH mix next year.

A slightly below league average hitter without any defensive value who only excels at hitting 15% of the pitchers should never be more than organization depth, especially given that at his age you can't really project any kind of development. I really believe one of the biggest contributors to his success right now is that other teams just haven't bothered to figure out how to pitch to him. That goes away the second you give him any sort of prominent role and/or the Cubs actually start posing any kind of challenge.

 

Our "1B/DH mix" next year should be an every day first baseman and a revolving cast of starters at other positions getting days off.

 

There's plenty of opportunity for a lefty masher on the bench. Whatever 1B we end up with is probably going to be LH. We know the outfield right now is heavily left handed. And with Hoerner/Bote/Wisdom's versatility we don't need to burn a bench spot on a super utility type. We can focus on having guys with leveragable skills to deploy, and early on Schwindel is showing the underlying skills of a legit lefty masher.

[squally1313]

The projections now see Schwindel as a smidge under league average as a hitter. Also as he's played more his platoon splits have been getting more and more pronounced. That's bad news for his prospects as an everyday guy, but it's looking like he might *really* mash lefties. We could use a guy like that in our 1B/DH mix next year.

A slightly below league average hitter without any defensive value who only excels at hitting 15% of the pitchers should never be more than organization depth, especially given that at his age you can't really project any kind of development. I really believe one of the biggest contributors to his success right now is that other teams just haven't bothered to figure out how to pitch to him. That goes away the second you give him any sort of prominent role and/or the Cubs actually start posing any kind of challenge.

 

Our "1B/DH mix" next year should be an every day first baseman and a revolving cast of starters at other positions getting days off.

 

There's plenty of opportunity for a lefty masher on the bench. Whatever 1B we end up with is probably going to be LH. We know the outfield right now is heavily left handed. And with Hoerner/Bote/Wisdom's versatility we don't need to burn a bench spot on a super utility type. We can focus on having guys with leveragable skills to deploy, and early on Schwindel is showing the underlying skills of a legit lefty masher.

 

His highest walk rate, at any level, ever (there's been a lot of levels) is 6.3%. The amount of hitting you have to do to overcome a lack of discipline/any other baseball skill is a lot, and asking that of a 29 year who has given 98 total MLB plate appearances and is on his fifth organization seems very dumb. There are ways to get less left handed than keeping this guy on the bench to hit a double twice a month.

[Tim]

A slightly below league average hitter without any defensive value who only excels at hitting 15% of the pitchers should never be more than organization depth, especially given that at his age you can't really project any kind of development. I really believe one of the biggest contributors to his success right now is that other teams just haven't bothered to figure out how to pitch to him. That goes away the second you give him any sort of prominent role and/or the Cubs actually start posing any kind of challenge.

 

Our "1B/DH mix" next year should be an every day first baseman and a revolving cast of starters at other positions getting days off.

 

There's plenty of opportunity for a lefty masher on the bench. Whatever 1B we end up with is probably going to be LH. We know the outfield right now is heavily left handed. And with Hoerner/Bote/Wisdom's versatility we don't need to burn a bench spot on a super utility type. We can focus on having guys with leveragable skills to deploy, and early on Schwindel is showing the underlying skills of a legit lefty masher.

 

His highest walk rate, at any level, ever (there's been a lot of levels) is 6.3%. The amount of hitting you have to do to overcome a lack of discipline/any other baseball skill is a lot, and asking that of a 29 year who has given 98 total MLB plate appearances and is on his fifth organization seems very dumb. There are ways to get less left handed than keeping this guy on the bench to hit a double twice a month.

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, <7% BB%, >.200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

[squally1313]

 

There's plenty of opportunity for a lefty masher on the bench. Whatever 1B we end up with is probably going to be LH. We know the outfield right now is heavily left handed. And with Hoerner/Bote/Wisdom's versatility we don't need to burn a bench spot on a super utility type. We can focus on having guys with leveragable skills to deploy, and early on Schwindel is showing the underlying skills of a legit lefty masher.

 

His highest walk rate, at any level, ever (there's been a lot of levels) is 6.3%. The amount of hitting you have to do to overcome a lack of discipline/any other baseball skill is a lot, and asking that of a 29 year who has given 98 total MLB plate appearances and is on his fifth organization seems very dumb. There are ways to get less left handed than keeping this guy on the bench to hit a double twice a month.

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

That sentence is talking about how much hitting (slugging) he has to do to make up for not having any other skills whatsoever. And is that actually a carrying skill? Seems like he's spent a lot of time in what used to be the PCL of AAA. Great, he slugged .630 for Oakland's AAA team. That was the fourth highest slugging in his own lineup. Then he did nothing in Iowa for 40 PAs and has put together 83 impressive PAs in Chicago. If your only path to being an MLB contributor is putting up elite slugging numbers, I'm going to need more than 83 PAs to override the rest of his career.

[Tim]

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, .200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

Yes, but that statement was in response to someone saying that he had no baseball skill at all.

[jersey cubs fan]

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, <7% BB%, >.200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

Yes, but that statement was in response to someone saying that he had no baseball skill at all.

It was saying he had no other skill than the hitting.

[squally1313]

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, <7% BB%, >.200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

 

To add to this, Schwindel has never hit more than 24 HRs in a single year (he has 22 now, but again, look at Oakland's AAA team). Of those 18 players in that list, only 3 of them hit less than 25 bombs.

[jersey cubs fan]

His carrying skill is slugging. I'm not sure why that keeps getting minimized/ignored.

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, <7% BB%, >.200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

 

To add to this, Schwindel has never hit more than 24 HRs in a single year (he has 22 now, but again, look at Oakland's AAA team). Of those 18 players in that list, only 3 of them hit less than 25 bombs.

Yeah but he was hindered by his incredibly stupid name, those other guys had cool names that helped their power.

 

Just change his name.

[squally1313]

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, <7% BB%, >.200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

 

To add to this, Schwindel has never hit more than 24 HRs in a single year (he has 22 now, but again, look at Oakland's AAA team). Of those 18 players in that list, only 3 of them hit less than 25 bombs.

Yeah but he was hindered by his incredibly stupid name, those other guys had cool names that helped their power.

 

Just change his name.

 

It is a sharp little jab of depression that every time I have to go to his Fangraphs page to reconfirm that he does indeed suck, my autocomplete wants to give me Schwarber for those first few letters.

[Tim]

 

Because something will have to give. Here's the list of qualified seasons in the last 5 full years(2015-19) from players who have >20% K%, .200 IsoP, and a 110+ wRC: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=73235&players=0&startdate=&enddate=

 

18 seasons, and the only repeats are Jose Abreu, Baez, and Castellanos. Schwindel either needs to be an extreme exception to the norm in terms of skills/profile, or his approach needs to change in one direction(more BB) or the other(fewer K), otherwise the odds are very good the power will come down with everything else as pitchers adjust.

Yes, but that statement was in response to someone saying that he had no baseball skill at all.

It was saying he had no other skill than the hitting.

Hitting for average and power are typically considered different skills/tools in baseball.

[squally1313]

Yes, but that statement was in response to someone saying that he had no baseball skill at all.

It was saying he had no other skill than the hitting.

Hitting for average and power are typically considered different skills/tools in baseball.

I didn't say hitting for average and we were talking about his potential as a 'lefty masher'. Think it's pretty obvious what I was talking about, but no, wasn't picturing him as the next Mark Grace.

[Tim]

Haters.

[BigSlick]

Friendship ended with Patrick Wisdom, now Frank Schwindel is my best friend

[Sammy Sofa]

Tim morphed into West Side Rooter so slowly we didn't even notice it happening.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

There's a LaHair/haters wordplay that goes here and I just can't quite make it work so pretend I did

[Bertz]

I still think Schwindel is interesting. Not nearly ready to say he's good, but I've seen enough I do think he's a legitimate MLBer.

 

He's chasing a lot, swinging at 34.9% of pitches out of the zone. That's a lot (~90th percentile), but a far cry from like Javy. It's more in line with Eloy Jimenez, Ozzie Albies, and Adolis Garcia

 

His contact rate on pitches in the zone is pretty good. At 87.1% that's about 70th percentile, in line with guys like Starling Marte and Xander Bogaerts

 

He also hits very few balls on the ground (33.3%, ~90th percentile), and he hits them hard (89.9 EV, ~75th percentile)

 

These are all things that tend to become meaningful relatively quickly. That's not to say that after ~100 PAs we've found his true talent level, but it does likely mean that on broad terms the four statements above are all likely true. The problem is that with a meh defensive 1B, the bar is really high and so the degree to which each of those statements are true matters a great deal. I think his current peripherals are unique but ultimately able to sustain pretty good production, but if he starts hitting the ball less hard, on the ground more, swing and missing more, etc. things dry up pretty quickly.

[Irrelevant Dude]

I'm starting to come around on Schwindel as a possible piece for 2022. Has he ever played other positions? It's hard to justify carrying a non full time player who can only play 1B. Any chance he can be passable at the corner outfield spots?

[Backtobanks]

I'm starting to come around on Schwindel as a possible piece for 2022. Has he ever played other positions? It's hard to justify carrying a non full time player who can only play 1B. Any chance he can be passable at the corner outfield spots?

 

Why are you saying he's not a full time player? If he continues hitting anywhere near what he has done so far, he certainly would be the full time 1B next year.

[UMFan83]

I'm starting to come around on Schwindel as a possible piece for 2022. Has he ever played other positions? It's hard to justify carrying a non full time player who can only play 1B. Any chance he can be passable at the corner outfield spots?

 

Why are you saying he's not a full time player? If he continues hitting anywhere near what he has done so far, he certainly would be the full time 1B next year.

 

Sure if he does he would be an excellent full time player. People are rightly wary of someone with ok minor league numbers breaking out at age 29 and don't want to hand out starting spots based on a still small sample size of ~150 PAs. He could be legit but its still early to tell for sure.

[17 Seconds]

it's crazy how quickly we got back to the days of hoping on guys like frank schwindel

[muntjack]

There are no guys like Frank Schwindel. Only Frank Schwindel.