Chicago Cubs should go with Kyle Schwarber over Nicholas Castellanos

When it comes down to it, the Chicago Cubs are better off sticking with Kyle Schwarber and using their resources to shore up the pitching staff this winter.

By far the most exciting part of watching Cubs baseball this year was when Nicholas Castellanos came to town bringing his own Big Stick Nick persona with him to a team that was in desperate need of a spark.

But even his 1.002 OPS with Chicago wasn’t enough to save the team’s season. The Cubs finished in third in the National League Central, winning just 84 games and missing the postseason for the first time since 2014. Of course, that resulted in moving on from Joe Maddon, hiring David Ross and completely reorganizing the baseball operations team at Gallagher Way.

There were few things Castellanos did wrong in his time with the Cubs. He made a run at becoming the first player since the early 20th century to hit 60 doubles in a season and played every out of every game with an infectious energy. It’s no wonder so many fans want to see him manning the outfield for years to come.

I hate to say it, I really do. That’s not going to happen. Chicago has too many other needs (a center fielder, a second baseman, a starting pitcher and multiple relievers) to dedicate the kind of resources Castellanos is going to demand in free agency. The biggest reason of all the Cubs will move on from the slugging outfielder? His former teammate and fellow outfielder Kyle Schwarber.

Chicago Cubs: Kyle Schwarber’s second half went largely overlooked

Look, I know the Cubs didn’t make it back to October and their September collapse is what we all remember when we look back at the 2019 season. But down the stretch, Kyle Schwarber put up some absolutely ridiculous numbers. 

Over the season’s final two months, this guy carried the Chicago offense. I’m not talking about a pretty solid stretch – I’m talking about an elite run where Schwarber ranked as one of the best offensive players in all of baseball.

His contact rate? Went up. Hard-hit rate? Went up. Strikeout rate? Went down. In the month of September, the slugging outfielder put up an 1.100 OPS, getting on base at a .419 clip with a .681 slugging percentage. He hit at least half-a-dozen home runs in every month outside of April, when he hit four.

“I think he made some adjustments,” Theo Epstein told ESPN in September. “Some of it was mindset and belief and approach and some of it was a little bit fundamental mechanics of the swing. But just the combination led to a really confident hitter up there who’s dictating a little bit more instead of being reactive — not trying to cover every single hole, but going up there with a really good gameplan.”

It’s one thing to go up there with a plan. It’s another thing entirely to put it into action on a daily basis. That’s exactly what Schwarber did, though, giving Cubs fans a glimpse of what we’ve long expected from the former first-round pick.