Phillies news and rumors 9/7: Has this been a good season for Kyle Schwarber?

Kyle Schwarber is having one of the stranger seasons in MLB history. (Cheryl Pursell)

Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber hit the fourth pitch of Wednesday’s matinee against the San Diego Padres 465 feet off of the batter’s eye in center field.

In almost two full seasons with the Phillies, Schwarber has displayed prodigious power, and an ability to lead important games off with titanic home runs.

He’s also become sports talk radio’s favorite Phillie to talk about, on the rare occasions the Eagles aren’t leading the discussion. Should he lead off? Do the hot streaks make up for how much he struggles during other weeks? Does batting average matter if you hit 40+ home runs?

The reality is this isn’t a conversation meant for short soundbites or one liners. It’s also not — as some have tried to suggest — a debate between old-school and new-school baseball observers. Schwarber is having one of the strangest seasons in MLB history, and there are enough metrics to make cases for and against Schwarber.

Batting Average

It will never be good to hit below the Mendoza line. Schwarber has increased his batting average to .195 after hitting just .184 in the first half of the season. Even the modest .218 clip Schwarber hit at during his first season with the Phillies was much easier to justify. It’s just a matter of whether the impact Schwarber makes in other areas is enough to overlook his batting average.

Home Runs

After hitting 46 home runs last season, Schwarber is now at 41 in 2023, including 19 blasts since the All-Star Break. We can debate whether hitting 30 home runs is worth a low batting average, but there are so few players who can consistently hit 40+ home runs. When you have one of them, you’re usually going to have to put up with some lumps elsewhere.

Strikeouts And Walks

Schwarber led baseball with 200 strikeouts in his first season with the Phillies, and currently leads the NL with 177 strikeouts in 2023. But while his average has dipped year-over-year, Schwarber has walked a staggering 111 times already, compared to 86 the entirety of 2022. The club record for walks in a single season was 127 times by Lenny Dykstra in 1993, and obviously they were more valuable from someone like him who could run. Still, if you’re angry that Schwarber has less singles (40) than home runs (41), you have to acknowledge that he’s finding other ways to get on base.

Fielding

This is the area that’s hardest to overlook. Schwarber is tied with Esteury Ruiz of the Oakland Athletics for the worst mark in terms of defensive runs saved at -19. He also has -19 outs above average, with no on else above -15. The eye test also tells you that while Schwarber was never a Gold Glover, he’s become significantly less reliable on balls that he does get to in the outfield. If Schwarber needs to play 45 games in the outfield in 2024, so be it. But he needs to be the primary DH moving forward, whether that means Bryce Harper plays first base, right field, left field or some combination.

WAR

WAR isn’t a perfect metric, but it probably is the best all-encompassing statistic that exists in baseball today. There isn’t a universal formula for WAR, outlets like FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball Reference (bWAR) have different elements included in their calculations. This year, FanGraphs gives Schwarber a 1.2 mark, while Baseball Reference has him at 0.3, just slightly more valuable than a replacement level player. While it can be argued that WAR doesn’t value power production quite as much as it should, it’s not hard to imagine why Schwarber isn’t in the top five in WAR for Phillies position players when the stat also takes baserunning and fielding into account.

Clubhouse

This is the one that can’t be quantified. When the Phillies snapped a 10-year postseason drought last year, manager Rob Thomson called Schwarber “the best clubhouse presence I’ve ever been around.” For as many big names as the Phillies already had, Schwarber brought the experience of a player who had already won a World Series and seems to always being playing in October. Schwarber’s leadership — which, again, isn’t easy for anyone not on the team to quantify — has probably had added value with Rhys Hoskins out for the entire season with a torn ACL in his left knee.

Verdict

Schwarber has unquestionably been a better player in the second half of the season (.955 OPS) than the first half (.736 OPS). The extremes are what make this season so difficult to evaluate. He’s going to strike out 200 times, give or take, but has a chance to set a new franchise record for walks. From here, there’s been more positive than negative, but to pretend there haven’t been quite a few lean moments would be dishonest. If Schwarber had been the primary DH this season — rather than adding a lot of negative value in left field — it would be easier to overlook some of his offensive shortcomings. Perhaps that will happen in 2024.

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