This one bums me out a bit, because I do like Kyle Schwarber. I kinda love the Phils, in their current state, tee be aitch, but Schwarber? Of course, I like Schwarber. The Schwarb-bomb? Schwarbs? Schwarbs is fun. It’s goofy that he hits leadoff, naturally, but I don’t find myself complaining about Kyle Schwarber, in general, during the heat of the fantasy baseball season. By the by, “the heat of the fantasy baseball season” is sweating out a H2H week, when you’re down one hit during Sunday Night Baseball, and you ate a bad batch of clams, hence the sweating, while sitting on the toilet. You ever get into an oyster and know you’re going to wish you were dead later that night? Man, I have been there. Shucks, indeed, I say. So, you draft Schwarber and know you’re going to get homers, some runs and RBIs and punting average and steals. That’s it. That has value, right? Of course. Sure, you’re going to get most of those stats in June, but you’ll get them when all is said and done. He’s dependable. Reliable. Give me another one, thesaurus, he’s predictable. So, why call him overrated? Or better yet, what can we expect from Kyle Schwarber for 2024 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
PSYCHE! Before we get into the post, wanted to announce that we’re doing a 15-team, auction draft next Tuesday (2/27) that starts at 6 PM EST. It is a FAST auction, not SLOW. You must be present, and it’ll likely take 4 hours total. It is $150 to join. Rules are here. To signup click this link. Anyway II, the Kyle Schwarber overrated post:
Kyle Schwarber was hitting .184 going into the All-Star Break. He’s MC Hammer doing the Addams Family rap, Addams Groove, because he’s got power and he is selling out. He had the lowest xBA when sorting out part-timers. His Launch Angle and fly ball rate are all where you’d like to see them for a home run hitter. He pulls everything (53.9%), which is up from 43.8%. He’s become a robot trying to pull everything into the seats, no matter how awful he looks, and he’s had some awful looks — 30% of the time on strikeouts.
His 2nd half last year saw his average go up to .213, but that was with marginally more strikeouts than the 1st half (29.8% vs. 30%). His BABIP went up, with one month actually producing a .292 BABIP with a 34.1% strikeout rate, which produced his highest average month of .238. Incredible, a lucky month for him is a .238 average. He’s going to hit sub-.200 this year. That’s going to tank his value. If he sells out further, he’s going to hit .180 or lower and talk about needing to make adjustments, which is going to make things worse. He’s the smallest bit of bad luck away from being benched vs. lefties and being Daniel Vogelbach that you drafted in the top 75 overall.
Another curious thing that’s happening is he’s not recognizing strikes, or just became very timid on strikes. His Swing% went down, and his swinging percentage on strikes? Down from 59.1% to 53.%. Phillies now have six or seven players (depending on your feeling on Johan Rojas) that could hit leadoff instead of Schwarber. Will they? I doubt it, because Thompson is pretty committed to Schwarbs hitting leadoff, so we’ll assume it continues. That doesn’t really help him though. If he’s hitting 45 homers in a great lineup, doing that at cleanup gets him more RBIs and same-ish runs. Yes, lower on runs, but only slightly lower with, say, Bohm or Realmuto or Castellanos right behind him. Anyway, that’s likely not happening, so instead you get solo homers or strikeouts or walks. I hate the nonsense “He’s ten rounds later!” But if you need power, there’s guys like Ozuna, Santander, Torkelson, Teoscar and more later. Don’t draft Schwarber at his current price, he seems fun but he’s a schmohawk in wolf’s clothing.
