Playoff baseball seldom follows the rote pitcher-usage patterns of the regular season, never less so than right now. This weekend, Schwarber can still make an impact as a pinch hitter without sacrificing defense. Short of Schwarber growing range unexpectedly, that leaves him without a home, but that’s also a problem for the offseason. The Cubs are uniquely unsuited to take advantage of Schwarber because they not only play in the National League, they have an outstanding first baseman in Anthony Rizzo. Maybe that will change when he’s fully healed, and the Cubs can live with his glove. Should the Cubs Bench Their Highest-Paid Hitter?Įxcept, he’s not such a great hitter that putting him in left field - where he’d be a danger to himself as well as the Cubs defense - would be anything more than a desperate attempt to ride the lightning. Some of this is the Willis Reed element some is likely the result of a corner outfield panic that stems from Jason Heyward’s continued inability to hit and the rest is because Schwarber, young as he is and hitting the way he does, would still be legitimately exciting if he were playing for the Padres in May, and not the Cubs in October. Schwarber doesn’t have wheels, and neither does his hype train, which is now a thousand-mile-an-hour maglev bullet designed by Elon Musk on ’shrooms. Watching him run the bases this week leads to no other conclusion than this: To put him in left would be to ask Dexter Fowler to run down every ball hit to the gap. That might be best in the long run for everyone involved Schwarber’s built like an Easter Island statue and has the mobility to match. So great was Schwarber’s impact that the Cubs toyed with the idea of putting him in left field for the three games at Wrigley - which was already a dicey proposition before he blew out his knee - but team doctors wouldn’t clear Schwarber to play the outfield. He struck out on six pitches in the second inning of Game 1, but in so doing, provided a clear reminder that his carrying tool - his eye, his ability to track the ball - was perfectly intact. I thought the knee and the rust would be too much for Schwarber, but it didn’t even take until the double for me to realize I was wrong. 19 prospect, hit .320/.438/.579 in 58 games in Double-A, .333/.403/.633 in 17 games in Triple-A, and appeared in his first Cubs game on June 16, 2015, almost exactly a year after he signed.īut sure enough, on came Schwarber, like Kirk Gibson leading the cavalry over the hill, to smash a double off the wall against Kluber in Game 1, then add two hits and two RBIs in a Game 2 win. He started 2015 as Baseball America’s no. It took him 72 games to traverse three levels of A-ball, hitting .344/.428/.634 along the way. The Cubs would promote him aggressively as long as he was hitting, and that’s all he did. That selection validated Schwarber’s bona fides, and he validated the hype right back. Here were the Cubs, Theo Epstein’s Children’s Crusade of power hitters, investing $3.125 million in a blocky catcher from a Big Ten school. Though Schwarber’s under-slot bonus made his draft position somewhat less surprising than it first appeared, it was still the biggest shock of the first 10 selections. That night in early June was when his hype train added sleeper cars. Schwarber hit .358/.464/.659 as a junior, then went fourth overall in the 2014 draft. In addition to the strength you’d expect from the Strong Mad of ballplayers, you could almost see Schwarber thinking through each at-bat, like Mike Trout, or Joey Votto, whom Schwarber grew up idolizing. Ohio State already wasn’t very good that year, but Schwarber made the Buckeyes look like children. That weekend, Schwarber went 6-for-12 with two walks, a hit by pitch, and a home run that left the ballpark (where the field is incidentally but hilariously named after Nick Swisher) entirely. That was when I realized that he was the best amateur hitter I’ve ever seen. Still, when Indiana came through Columbus on a snowy weekend in March of 2014, I went to see him live. more often than they strike it rich in the big leagues. Schwarber started to get first-round hype the following spring, but I was circumspect about his professional prospects - every tournament produces a cult favorite, but those heroes end up selling Toyotas or teaching high school P.E. Jake Arrieta Picked a Good Time to Rediscover His Ultraeffective Form
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