Chicago Cubs: Kyle Schwarber should be batting 9th

Chicago Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber must be moved down in the batting order, as the leadoff experiment has failed.

Coming off of a 2016 campaign that saw him miss all but two regular season games due to injury, only to then return from the DL in time for post-season heroics and a key role in a historic World Series win, many expected great things in 2017 from Chicago Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber.

His performance through 42 games of the still-fresh 2017 season, however, leaves much to be desired. It is time for manager Joe Maddon to abandon his early plans to bat the slugger in the leadoff spot, where he has accrued 89% of his plate appearances thus far. This will help keep the struggling Schwarber from hampering a Cubs team which recently found themselves atop the NL Central after stumbling out of the gate on Opening Day.

Maddon has also adopted the philosophy of batting his pitcher eighth in the order, leaving the ninth position in the lineup the only feasible destination for the young hitter.

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Discussion of who Kyle Schwarber “really is”–his true talent as a professional striker of the baseball pitched by another professional–can wait for another time. At this point in the season, it doesn’t matter who Schwarber really is, who he might be, or who he might not be.

What matters is the relative competitive level of the performances turned in by the left fielder. Through 42 games featuring 187 plate appearances, such level is below that of a replacement player, the level of talent which can be readily acquired via waiver wire or trade.

Indeed, Schwarber has fallen below the dreaded Mendoza Line faster than he awkwardly falls to the turf trying to corral a lazy fly ball. Per Baseball Reference’s own bWAR metric, which lists a ghastly -1.0 for Schwarber, he has already cost his team a win. Meanwhile, the impact of his 74 OPS+, 26% below the average environment-adjusted OPS of the league, is only exacerbated by his perch atop the daily lineup.

Schwarber’s spot in the lineup could be amplifying the impact of his offensive struggles. Consider this: In 2016, the first spot in the batting order for all MLB teams recorded 22,598 PA’s, which was a little more than 12% of all PA’s recorded that season. The ninth spot in the lineup, by contrast, saw 18,305 PA’s, or 9.9% of all recorded appearances.

Comparatively, the vaunted “leadoff spot” in the batting order receives about 19% more chances at the dish than does the man occupying the last spot in the order. Similarly, the second hitter in the lineup receives about 17% more chances than does the ninth place hitter.

It follows that a manager can mitigate or amplify the impact of a player’s performance by adjusting his spot in the order to get him more, or fewer, chances.

Consider a player who always makes an out, regardless of game situation. When he steps into the batter’s box, he’s out, no matter what.

Batting such a player ninth, we’ll forget for the moment why such a player, who is likely a baby or some other child, is on an MLB roster, would mean he will make nearly 19% fewer outs over the course of a season than he would from the leadoff spot. His decidedly negative impact on the ability of a lineup to score runs can be reduced by almost a fifth, simply by batting order positioning.

By keeping Schwarber anywhere near the top of the lineup, Joe Maddon is in fact increasing the amount of times a player currently performing below replacement level gets to make an out.

Schwarber’s performance in 2015, as well as his 2016 World Series dominance, has earned him the right to stay with the big-league Chicago Cubs through a month or two of bad hitting. That said, the grace period is rapidly approaching its conclusion, and if the team wishes to further mitigate the impact of Kyle Schwarber not hitting, or hitting extremely poorly, he needs to be batting 9th.

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