Cubs News: How Kyle Schwarber both excelled and fell short with Chicago

Since joining the Cubs in 2015, Kyle Schwarber was at the center of big moments.

In 2014 the Chicago Cubs used their fourth overall pick in the June Amateur Draft on Indiana Hoosier star Kyle Schwarber. Former Cubs president Theo Epstein fell in love with Schwarber when he was mashing balls 450+ feet for the Hoosiers, and he was able to get his guy. He was considered to be a top-100 prospect by MLB.com that year.

After absolutely mashing in 147 minor league games in 2014 and 2015, he made his MLB debut on June 16, 2015. Just a year after being drafted. Six years later the Schwarber era with the Cubs might be over, with the team non-tendering him on Wednesday. The six years he has spent on the North Side of Chicago featured plenty of ups and downs.

In those six seasons he totaled a .230/.336/.480 slash with 121 home runs, .816 OPS, 9.5 fWAR and 113 wRC+ in 551 games. He hit plenty of towering home runs, drew some walks and came up big. Nobody can say that him returning for the 2016 World Series and hitting .412/.500/.471 after getting his knee reconstructed earlier that season wasn’t an amazing feat. 121 home runs in 551 games is not shabby either.

With that said, there are holes in the swing and some of the further expectations stowed upon him have not quite been fulfilled. Now he will officially be a free agent and possibly be lost for nothing more than some “financial flexibility” if he does not sign back with the Cubs.