Written by Randy Holt at Bloguin
As memorable as this 2015 Chicago Cubs season was, there was not a player who made a louder statement to close out the year than Kyle Schwarber. While the Cubs’ bats largely fell silent in their NLCS loss to the New York Mets, Schwarber kept on plugging. He finished his first playoff appearance with an on-base percentage over .400 and an OPS of 1.308, the latter of which is primarily thanks to the five home runs he hit throughout the postseason.
Impressive as it was, though, there still lies a bit of uncertainty surrounding Schwarber and his future in Chicago, at least in the eyes of some. Obviously it doesn’t have anything to do with his performance at the plate, but rather what will become of him in the field.
The Cubs drafted Kyle Schwarber as a catcher. Throughout his time in the minor leagues, he remained behind the plate, and the Cubs were adamant about the fact that he’d remain a catcher for the foreseeable future. Which is why he didn’t really break onto the scene until Miguel Montero went down with an injury. Even then, Schwarber spent more time in left field than behind the plate, with 39 regular season appearances in left (42 in the outfield total) against just 20 as a backstop.
It’s not as if the defensive numbers paint a particularly ugly picture for Kyle Schwarber. FanGraphs had him at a -3.4 Def rating for the season, with a UZR of -0.7, which would paint him as just about average, if not barely below it. He also went -3 in the Defensive Runs Saved category. Of course, it’s a relatively small sample size, especially for a statistic like UZR, and defensive metrics in themselves aren’t a perfect indicator of a player’s ability in the field. But in the case of Schwarber, the metrics are probably doing him a favor.
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