Written by Jon Tayler at SI.com
In the latest example of “Baseball is a very hard sport even for those who are very good at it,” the Cubs announced on Thursday that they were sending World Series hero Kyle Schwarber down to Triple A due to a terminal case of him being terrible this season.
By the numbers, this is an easy and obvious move. The burly leftfielder was hitting a putrid .171/.295/.378 in 261 plate appearances (albeit with 12 homers), his -0.6 WAR is seventh-worst among players with 200 or more PAs, and his defense in the outfield falls somewhere between “unacceptable” and “avert your eyes.” The 24-year-old has hit just .147 in 40 games since the start of May, and while that might be tolerable on a team that’s firing on all cylinders, it’s harder to hide with a Cubs squad that is only a game above .500 and 1 1/2 games out of first place in the National League Central.
But while the demotion is understandable, Schwarber’s struggles are unexpected. Before the season, the prevailing thought was that Schwarber—who missed nearly the entire 2016 regular season with a torn ACL but came back in time to play in the World Series—would be a key piece of the Cubs’ title defense, just as he was expected to be a big part of of their run to a championship last season before his knee injury. After all, he hit .246/.355/.487 with 16 home runs in 69 games after being called up in late 2015 and crushed some mighty homers in the playoffs, and he showed no rust in his Fall Classic cameo, reaching base 10 times in 20 plate appearances.
Instead, Schwarber was so awful as Chicago’s regular leadoff hitter that manager Joe Maddon was forced to boot him from that spot last month, mixing and matching with a variety of players before settling on Anthony Rizzo, who’s been stellar in that role.
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