Before this season began, Kyle Schwarber was still something of a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Because he still had yet to play a full season’s worth of major league games, our sense of him as a player was made up of a small sample of snapshots from the past two years. […]
Tag: Kyle Schwarber
Kyle Schwarber’s Battle with BABIP
Kyle Schwarber is not as bad as the bulk of his numbers this season would seem to indicate. In fact, there’s one really telling stat that lends hope to the idea of Schwarber being quite a bit better than his statistics have advertised this year. Because he is hitting .181 and reaching base at a .299 clip […]
A Different Kind of Angst: What Needs to Go Right on Offense
In January, during the Cubs Convention at the Sheraton Grand in Chicago, Joe Maddon titillated the crowd with his confident proclamation that the Cubs would repeat their World Series title, and no one in the crowd doubted it. In the months since, “That’s Cub” has become, again, both a pejorative and mocking refrain, depending on […]
Schwarber Demotion, Heyward Injury Pressure Cubs to Remake Outfield
We here at BP Wrigleyville are allergic to the hot take. We prefer measured analysis, historical analysis, analysis of analyses. We don’t publish news, we don’t break news, we rarely comment on players being sent down or called up, except in the instance of them being parts of larger processes. But, oh boy, Kyle Schwarber […]
Maintaining Perspective Surrounding Kyle Schwarber
When the Chicago Cubs made the announcement that they were optioning Kyle Schwarber to Triple-A Iowa on Thursday, there were mixed reviews and perspectives, but ultimately not a ton of surprise. When you’re off to a start that features a .171 batting average and an on-base percentage under .300, it’s reasonable to have the expectation […]
Game 62 Recap: Cubs 7, Rockies 5
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Heading into the game, I did some online shopping for some pitchforks, lanterns, and clubs in case the Cubs lost. Not surprisingly, Amazon.com had the best deals. I thought $35 was pretty reasonable for a pitchfork. The problem soon became that Amazon did not have same day shipping for what I […]
GAME 58 RECAP: Marlins 6, CUBS 5
What You Need To Know: John Lackey struggled and gave up five runs on seven hits, including a pair of long balls. The silver lining is that he struck out six and walked none. The Marlins’ sixth, and what would eventually become game-deciding, run was scored on a bizarre strikeout-wild pitch during which no one other […]
A Small and Hesitant Case for Batting Average
When the Cubs are presented with next year’s schedule, there’s nothing I’d like more than to see Theo Epstein cross off the part of the calendar with the west coast trip and write in six days at California Pizza Kitchen. Last week was quite the rough stretch of baseball, wasn’t it? The last time I […]
Schwarber and the Shift
By one measure, Kyle Schwarber’s performance in May was historic. It wasn’t his 51 wRC+, or his .120 batting average, which were bad, but hardly remarkable given that worse marks in both categories have already been posted this season (if you think Schwarber was an ineffective leadoff hitter, Royals leadoff man Alcides Escobar has a […]
Game 54 Recap: Cubs 5, Cardinals 3
What You Need To Know: The Cubs fell behind early, thanks to a Jose Martinez two-run bloop single in the first and a Molina solo home run in the sixth. But thanks to a Baez solo home run in the third and Kyle Schwarber’s first career grand slam in the seventh, the Cubs clawed their […]