You wouldn’t expect a 31-year-old designated hitter to be able to reinvent himself after 1,083 career games and 4,452 trips to the plate, but Kyle Schwarber has become a brand new hitter here in 2024.
He’s always hit for power. In 2022, his first season in Philadelphia, he smoked 46 dingers and last year he smashed 47. But Schwarber took a lot of heat for his chronically low batting averages and high strikeout totals in each of those two seasons, hitting .218 in ‘22 and a hard-to-believe .197 in ‘23. He struck out more than 200 times in each of those seasons.
Much of that was due to Schwarber’s patience at the plate, which saw him fall into a lot of two-strike counts. He got a lot of walks that way, but also whiffed a bunch. He’s also struggled against left-handers in a Phillies uniform, hitting .188 against them a season ago.
This year, Schwarber changed his approach against left-handers and with two strikes, opting for more controlled swings and a higher rate of contact. The results have been tremendous.
His .263 batting average entering Friday is 66 points higher than a year ago, his .393 on-base percentage is tied for second-best in the National League and his .899 OPS is fifth. He’s improved some glaring deficiencies in his game while not losing any of his power, as evidenced by Wednesday night’s three-HR outburst against the Dodgers in L.A.
The most startling change is his performance against left-handed pitchers. Most lefty hitters struggle against southpaws and Schwarber has been no different throughout his career. This season, Schwarber is hitting a ridiculous .340 against them, with a .459 OBP and 1.026 OPS against them.
He has improved 152 points.
That is insane.
Strangely, it’s come at the expense of his success against right-handed pitchers, against whom he’s hit .216 with a .352 OBP and .821 OPS. Those are still solid numbers, but a bit below his .849 OPS from a season ago against them.
Schwarber has given up a little bit of his power in exchange for more contact, but no one is complaining. And it’s unusual for an established veteran player to suddenly revamp his entire approach this late in his career and see so much success doing so.
For all the folks in my Twitter mentions calling for hitting coach Kevin Long to be fired during the team-wide slumps this year, also note Long was instrumental in helping Schwarber formulate this new strategy.
Last year, fans complained that manager Rob Thomson kept Schwarber in the leadoff spot, despite a batting average under .200. To be fair, on-base percentage is the preferred number to examine when determining how productive a hitter truly is, but there were times it seemed like there were too few quality at-bats coming from the top of the lineup.
Schwarber’s improvements this year have been notable and much needed. Cheers to Schwarber for realizing they needed to be made and making it happen.
