Author: Connor Loughlin (Medill ’20)

 

Few players in Major League Baseball have experienced both the extreme highs and lows of being a professional athlete like Kyle Schwarber has in merely three and a half years since becoming a full time contributor for the Chicago Cubs.  Breaking onto the scene in the summer of 2015, Schwarber slashed .246/.355/.487 (131 wRC+) and hit 16 HR in only 273 PA before going on to hit 5 more HR in only 9 playoff games, giving the Cubs and their fans dreams that he could someday be a superstar.

 

Despite the awe-inducing home runs and natural charisma, he broke into the league as a “catcher” who needed serious work defensively, and the transition to LF was rough to say the least.  But these were all things that could be worked on over time.  At the moment, the Cubs had a future stud who would perennially challenge for the Home Run crown over the next decade.

 

Of course, all optimism was put on hold when Schwarber tore his ACL merely days into the 2016 regular season.  Originally, the recovery timetable was estimated to be around a year, meaning Schwarber would have to watch the Cubs roll towards the best record in baseball from the dugout.  But quietly, Schwarber attacked his rehab with the secret intent of making it back for a potential World Series appearance.  You know the rest.  Schwarber returned to DH in the World Series only 7 months after tearing his ACL and went 7-17, including the lead off hit to spark the 10^th inning rally in Game 7.  He forever cemented his legend in Chicago, and expectations for his 2017 season were through the roof.

 

The Schwarber experience, however, is a rollercoaster ride, and the first half of 2017 was the lowest of lows.  His K% ballooned.  His Avg. took a nosedive.  He could not handle the grind of being an everyday LF, let alone the basics of manning a corner outfield spot.  This resulted in a demotion to Iowa, followed by a return to the Cubs and a respectable finish (.211/.315/.467, 103 wRC+, 30.9 K%).

 

After an offseason of shedding weight and working on becoming a better defensive LF, Schwarber rounded back into form in 2018.  He was worth 3.2 fWAR, finished with a 115 wRC+, and was the second best defensive LF in MLB according to the Fangraphs Def rating (more on this shortly).  Despite a solid season, certain factions of Cubs fans still seem to think he is a valuable trade piece and still a better fit in the AL (though the DH may be arriving to the NL sooner rather than later).  So how does Schwarber project for the upcoming 2019 season?  Let’s dive in.

 

Defensively

 

This is the biggest question mark surrounding Schwarber.  Many fans and pundits are calling Schwarber’s high defensive rating according to Fangraphs a fluke, severely skewed by his 11 assists, which were tied for second with several other outfielders.  It is true his arm probably accounted for much of his favorable defensive rating, as he was well below average in other defensive areas.  According to Statcast data, he was worth -8 OAA (Outs above average) and -4% Catch Percentage Added.  These are not favorable numbers.  So the question lies, can Schwarber’s arm make up for the holes in his defense over the long run?  Are assists in the previous season correlated or predictive of assists in the next season?  I ran a regression of all outfielders who qualified in 2017 and 2018 to determine this correlation.

assists18 = 0.3542751*assists17 + 4.131846, R²=0.1103

As it turns out, outfield assists in the previous season are not very predictive of outfield assists in the next season, as the relationship between the two is not statistically significant at the 5% level.  In other words, it’s unlikely that Schwarber will be able to replicate his 11 assists from last season.  That’s not to say there aren’t outfielders who consistently wow us with their arms year in and year out, and Schwarber might be one of those guys.  But in order to replicate his defensive value from last season, he will have to greatly improve his route efficiency and simply catch more balls.  Here are the correlations between OAA and Catch % Added from year to year among outfielders who qualified in 2017 and 2018.

OAA18 = 0.8481895*OAA17 – 0.058918, R²=0.6336

CatchPerAdded18 = 0.7713503*CatchPerAdded17 + 0.1316468, R²=0.4950

Clearly OAA and Catch % Added are less volatile among outfielders from year to year.  The ß₁ values in each regression are statistically significant at the 1% level, and these stats from the base year explain much more of their variation in the next season than outfield assists do.  It’s difficult to find an outfielder that went from bad to at least average at playmaking among those who qualified in 2017 and 2018.  The closest example is Charlie Blackmon, who improved his OAA from -8 to -1 last season.  It will be very interesting to see if Schwarber will be able to supplement his plus arm with improved playmaking in the left field this season.

 

Offensively

 

Now for the exciting part.  Many still seem to think Schwarber has merely scratched the surface of his potential as a hitter, and I am admittedly in this camp of those who are bullish on his 2019 season.  He had the sixth highest BB% in MLB last year (15.3%) and was able to maintain his power despite dropping a lot of weight.  In fact, his SLG% did not change from 2017 to 2018 (.467).  He is still learning how to hit LHP, but if he can even become just a league-average hitter against lefties he is going to be a nightmare for opposing teams.  Here are his 2018 splits.

 

Pitcher	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+
vs. LHP	.224	.352	.303	85
vs. RHP	.241	.356	.503	121

 

Obviously the bulk of his plate appearances came against RHP (~82%) in 2018, but at some point Joe Maddon has to commit to Schwarber being an everyday LF no matter who is on the mound to let him get comfortable against southpaws and continue his development at the plate.

 

Here are how different projection outlets from Fangraphs see Schwarber’s 2019 playing out.

 

Zips: .233/.343/.472, 112 OPS+, 128 G, 27 HR, 1.6 fWAR

Depth Charts: .241/.354/.478, 120 wRC+, 137 G, 30 HR, 3.2 fWAR

Fans: .251/.365/.491, 128 wRC+, 142 G, 32 HR, 3.7 fWAR

 

Zips does not have a very favorable outlook for Schwarber’s offensive production in 2019, or for any of the Cubs outfielders for that matter.  The crowdsourced Fangraphs projections (Fans) and Depth Charts projections are particularly bullish on Schwarber and his return to 2015 form at the plate.  Obviously Cubs fans would be delighted to see either one of these outputs, but it’s hard not to dream of Schwarber surpassing these expectations and becoming a legitimate superstar alongside teammates Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez.

 

Only time will tell what Schwarber ultimately becomes.  He may have already reached his peak, and a 15-20% better than league average hitter with a mixed bag of defensive abilities is certainly not a bad outcome at all.  Many teams would love to have that player in either of their corner outfield spots.  There may, however, be a level beyond that for Schwarber.  We should get a solid idea of how good he can really become this upcoming season.