A Cubs Fan's Pain: Watching Kyle Schwarber Hit Playoff Home Runs Elsewhere

I always wondered if the Cubs were totally oblivious to the fact that the DH was coming the next year?  I cannot fathom how they thought it was okay to let Schwarber go if they knew they only had to have him play LF full time 1 more year. 

Thanks man.  You just ruined my day.

More seriously, the way this season has shaken out I’m rooting for the Phillies because of him even though I wouldn’t if he wasn’t on that team.  Schwarbs will always have a place in our hearts.

Nobody should ever root for the Phillies. Good things happening to fans of Philadelphia teams is not something this world needs.

Definitely nostalgic for Schwarber, but I highly doubt he would still be a Cub if we didn't non-tender him though.  He would have played out 2021 and gotten traded with the rest of the guys at the deadline.  It does suck though...they had Schwarber on the Score on Friday evening and while he still talked positively about his time in Chicago, its clear that he feels like he found a home with Philly and like the rest of their big bats have fallen in love with the fanbase and the atmosphere at CBP during playoff games.

I wonder if Schwarber is an example of a WAR breaker.  Is that even a thing that can happen?  His value is always going to be limited to his lack of defensive value, but even with the terrible BA and extremely high strikeout rate it seems like his stat line should a better player than a 0.7 bWAR guy.  Or maybe cumulatively his value is 0.7 wins but his massive power and ability to draw walks will fit more on a team with good hitting up and down the order.  Comparing to 2023 Cubs, bWAR has his value at a midpoint between Miles Mastrobuoni and Mark Leiter Jr.

3 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Definitely nostalgic for Schwarber, but I highly doubt he would still be a Cub if we didn't non-tender him though.  He would have played out 2021 and gotten traded with the rest of the guys at the deadline.  It does suck though...they had Schwarber on the Score on Friday evening and while he still talked positively about his time in Chicago, its clear that he feels like he found a home with Philly and like the rest of their big bats have fallen in love with the fanbase and the atmosphere at CBP during playoff games.

I wonder if Schwarber is an example of a WAR breaker.  Is that even a thing that can happen?  His value is always going to be limited to his lack of defensive value, but even with the terrible BA and extremely high strikeout rate it seems like his stat line should a better player than a 0.7 bWAR guy.  Or maybe cumulatively his value is 0.7 wins but his massive power and ability to draw walks will fit more on a team with good hitting up and down the order.  Comparing to 2023 Cubs, bWAR has his value at a midpoint between Miles Mastrobuoni and Mark Leiter Jr.

As long a defense is factored in there is a lot of measurement error and of course the internal bias of the system that values positions at different weights. It may seem simplistic, but at some point, you have to value run production and run scoring pretty highly.  A guy like Schwarber is pretty valuable. He'd be much more valuable on a team like the Cubs who needs run production. I don't know how to factor that in to WAR. Like, if you Put Schwarber on a team with a lot of power, his skill set is not as valuable, but if you put him on a team that needs that type of player, he's obviously much more valuable. I think, like in most instances context matters most. 

28 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Definitely nostalgic for Schwarber, but I highly doubt he would still be a Cub if we didn't non-tender him though.  He would have played out 2021 and gotten traded with the rest of the guys at the deadline.  It does suck though...they had Schwarber on the Score on Friday evening and while he still talked positively about his time in Chicago, its clear that he feels like he found a home with Philly and like the rest of their big bats have fallen in love with the fanbase and the atmosphere at CBP during playoff games.

I wonder if Schwarber is an example of a WAR breaker.  Is that even a thing that can happen?  His value is always going to be limited to his lack of defensive value, but even with the terrible BA and extremely high strikeout rate it seems like his stat line should a better player than a 0.7 bWAR guy.  Or maybe cumulatively his value is 0.7 wins but his massive power and ability to draw walks will fit more on a team with good hitting up and down the order.  Comparing to 2023 Cubs, bWAR has his value at a midpoint between Miles Mastrobuoni and Mark Leiter Jr.

I agree that he probably is not a Cub still, even if they tendered him a contract in 2020. Though I think the pain level is slightly different had they received actual value in return for getting rid of him (ie Canario, Alcantara, or PCA). 

Regarding WAR, it is interesting to think about, and I’ve always wondered if Schwarber was the most popular player that has provided the smallest amount of WAR. I’ve got not idea how to measure something like that. I think in his case, he suffers from the fact that we still don’t really know how to accurately measure defense, and that he brings two skills to the table, drawing walks and hitting home runs. Theoretically, he would be more valuable to a team more lacking in those skills, like the Cubs, than he would be on, say, the Braves. 

26 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Definitely nostalgic for Schwarber, but I highly doubt he would still be a Cub if we didn't non-tender him though.  He would have played out 2021 and gotten traded with the rest of the guys at the deadline.  It does suck though...they had Schwarber on the Score on Friday evening and while he still talked positively about his time in Chicago, its clear that he feels like he found a home with Philly and like the rest of their big bats have fallen in love with the fanbase and the atmosphere at CBP during playoff games.

I wonder if Schwarber is an example of a WAR breaker.  Is that even a thing that can happen?  His value is always going to be limited to his lack of defensive value, but even with the terrible BA and extremely high strikeout rate it seems like his stat line should a better player than a 0.7 bWAR guy.  Or maybe cumulatively his value is 0.7 wins but his massive power and ability to draw walks will fit more on a team with good hitting up and down the order.  Comparing to 2023 Cubs, bWAR has his value at a midpoint between Miles Mastrobuoni and Mark Leiter Jr.

It's funny, a lot of fanbases try to argue their all or nothing guys (e.g. Gallo) are less valuable than WAR says.

I think for the regular season, there's nothing being missed.  Walks and dongs with literally nothing else of positive value just isn't a very good player.  It's obviously a huge minus on defense, and because he hits for zero average (he had more dongs than singles most of the season), his offense isn't actually all that great.  He also has graded out as a minus clutch hitter for his regular season career.

I'd buy that he's got some secret sauce that helps him out in the playoffs, not a clutch gene but maybe like a predilection for feasting against the turbo sinkers you see all over the place in October.  But especially now that he's making market rates I don't think he's a huge driver for getting a team into October.

12 minutes ago, matto1233 said:

I think in his case, he suffers from the fact that we still don’t really know how to accurately measure defense

With Statcast I don't think this is really true, and even if it is partially true we've got a very very good read on outfield defense at a minimum. 

12 minutes ago, Bertz said:

With Statcast I don't think this is really true, and even if it is partially true we've got a very very good read on outfield defense at a minimum. 

it's not even partially true.

Edit: Misread

The year is 2035, the Cubs have won 9 straight world series and the Cardinals have folded their franchise in shame, while an AI of Rob Manfred introduces new rules aimed to curb the Cubs dominance.  Cubs fans still re-litigate the decision to non-tender Schwarber at least once every 6 weeks.

2 hours ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

I always wondered if the Cubs were totally oblivious to the fact that the DH was coming the next year?  I cannot fathom how they thought it was okay to let Schwarber go if they knew they only had to have him play LF full time 1 more year. 

Don't forget the NL had the DH in the Covid season of 2020 and the Cubs very seldom chose to use Schwarbs in that role.  Not sure how often the Phils use him in that role but he still seems to be in left a good bit when I saw them in the regular season.

Look, I love the guy but it wasn't like his value was off the charts in 2020 and teams were knocking down the Cubs door for him.  The fact that he signed a one year prove it deal with the Nats at 8 mil per year shows it his value was not much at that time.    Cubs could have gotten significantly more trading him the year before. 

51 minutes ago, Bertz said:

With Statcast I don't think this is really true, and even if it is partially true we've got a very very good read on outfield defense at a minimum. 

Defense aside, WAR itself is an imperfect stat. It’s certainly one of the best ways we have to measure a player’s overall contributions, but Fangraphs has Schwarber as having been twice as valuable this year as Baseball Reference does. To clarify, I’m certainly not saying Schwarber is some underrated by WAR superstar, just that there are some error bars there, and that the Cubs could use the skill set. 

Just now, CubUgly said:

Don't forget the NL had the DH in the Covid season of 2020 and the Cubs very seldom chose to use Schwarbs in that role.  Not sure how often the Phils use him in that role but he still seems to be in left a good bit when I saw them in the regular season.

Look, I love the guy but it wasn't like his value was off the charts in 2020 and teams were knocking down the Cubs door for him.  The fact that he signed a one year prove it deal with the Nats at 8 mil per year shows it his value was not much at that time.    Cubs could have gotten significantly more trading him the year before. 

yes, I don't really blame the Cubs for non-tendering him. Weren't they trying to get Nick to sign? But I also have a hard time with the folks who say he's not a valuable player. Any guy who walks 100 times and hits 40 HR is a valuable player. 

5 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

yes, I don't really blame the Cubs for non-tendering him. Weren't they trying to get Nick to sign? But I also have a hard time with the folks who say he's not a valuable player. Any guy who walks 100 times and hits 40 HR is a valuable player. 

Nick Castellanos? That was the offseason before Schwarber was non tendered

4 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Nick Castellanos? That was the offseason before Schwarber was non tendered

my memory for that stuff is bad.

They NTd him because he was terrible in 2020 and a player who was equally terrible in 2020 but could still fake it in the OF was available for like a million less. He hit 47 HR this year and didn't even slug 500; didn't even really come close. He walked 40 more times this year than the career-high he set last year, which is insane to think about for any 30+ year-old player not named Barry Bonds. He is probably going to pass Manny after Altuve does, and good for him. I still enjoy watching a Schwarbomb; I don't believe they made a massive mistake letting him go. 

I love watching Kyle Schwarber hit postseasons dongs.

Kyle Schwarber would have zero postseason home runs from 2021-2023 if he stayed with the Cubs. 

38 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

They NTd him because he was terrible in 2020 and a player who was equally terrible in 2020

I think even at the time we were pointing out how its silly to put too much weight into 2020 performances because there were a lot of odd stat lines from normally good players.  The previous year he had an .871 OPS, and .824 or something in 2018.  If the decision to non-tender him based on a 60 game 2020 season, I think that's foolish.  Almost certainly there was more to it than that, but it likely largely had to do with Poor Tom Ricketts, his impending FA and the inability to get much in terms of a trade

1 hour ago, matto1233 said:

Defense aside, WAR itself is an imperfect stat. It’s certainly one of the best ways we have to measure a player’s overall contributions, but Fangraphs has Schwarber as having been twice as valuable this year as Baseball Reference does. To clarify, I’m certainly not saying Schwarber is some underrated by WAR superstar, just that there are some error bars there, and that the Cubs could use the skill set. 

Are they reqlly hurting for his skillset?  I posted this comparison in the LCS thread a week or two back:

Quote

 

...on a per plate appearance basis Morel and Wisdom outplayed Schwarber and Castellanos by a fair margin.

Phillies Guys: 1391 PAs, 2.4 WAR, 76 Dongs, 114 wRC+

Cubs Guys: 731 PAs, 2.1 WAR, 49 Dongs, 115 wRC+

 

We've got defensively limited high power/low contact guys available.  Like I guess we didn't have a LHH one (though Caissie's coming quickly) but I don't think that's what was holding the team back this season.

Like I get Schwarber nostalgia, the scoreboard dong against the Cardinals is like a top 5 or 10 moment as a Cubs fan.  But we don't need to conflate that with him being some sort of missing piece on the 2023 roster.  If you're going to stare wistfully at the Phillies I think Harper, Wheeler or Alvarado deserve a much much much longer look.

Watching him hit home runs for another team doesn't bring me pain. It brings me joy because I know he had no place on this team moving forward, and it makes me happy to see him thriving and succeeding in other places when he wouldn't be able to do that here. He wouldn't be climbing up the postseason home run leaderboard because he wouldn't be playing in the postseason if he stayed here.