Chicago Cubs: Despite critics, Kyle Schwarber has actually been pretty good

Chicago Cubs: An offensive resurgence

If you look at Fangraphs, you’ll see an incredible consistency for Schwarber to this point in the season, over the last couple of years. Many of his offensive categories, for example, are nearly analogous with each other. That being said, diving deeper into his production can hopefully spell out the whole story.

Fangraphs is exceptional when it comes to displaying a player as a whole, and not just in chunks when it comes to how a player performs. For Schwarber, a noticeable change has been his strikeout and walk rate, and how that is helping him overall.

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Last season, Schwarber was striking out at a ridiculously bad 30.9 percent clip. This year, while still high, it has decreased to 27.2 percent, the lowest of his career, minor league included. Schwarber’s walk rate has increased as well, moving from 12.1 percent last season to another career-high (over a respectable sample size) of 15.3 percent.

The way to decrease one’s strikeout rate and increase one’s walk rate is simple: do not swing at bad pitches. It is precisely what has been happening with Schwarber in 2018. Diving into his 0-Swing%, which measures swings on pitches out of the zone, Schwarber has decreased that from 28 to 25.2 percent. Once again, in a large sample size, this is a career-best for him.

Schwarber has also found increased production when it comes to swinging at pitches inside the zone. Z-Contact% measures this statistic, and Schwarber has gone from 80.7 percent in 2017 to 82.4 percent this year. It is, you guessed it, another career best for him.

Placing two and two together, and of course, it is not that simple, Schwarber’s wOBA, wRC+, and WAR have all been much better this year versus last year. He has posted a .343 wOBA while performing better in wRC+ with a 114 and has been worth nearly three Wins Above Replacement.

Schwarber overall slash line is higher too, as he sits at a .239/.356/.471. It would be great to see the overall slugging percentage rise a little more, but if wishes were fishes nobody would go hungry, or rather we’d see Schwarber’s slugging percentage go through the roof.