NEWSLETTER
Kyle Schwarber hasn’t lacked for attention around here lately, with each of Michael (Schwarber as a top 15 prospect), Luke (catching situation at Iowa), and me (Schwarber’s future promotion schedule and position) giving him the treatment over the past week.
But when you keep on raking at AA in your first full professional season, you’re going to get a silly amount of attention.
That’s especially true when you hit two more homers to tie for the Southern League lead like Schwarber did last night.
Schwarber’s first:
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Just enough to get out.
And Schwarber’s second:
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A little further than the first, but very much the same stroke and shot. It’s funny to see Schwarber hit a couple high-arcing, just-enough homers, because we’re otherwise so used to seeing him send rocket shots 400+ feet out of the place. These’ll play, too.
On the year, Schwarber now has his line up to .322/.453/.636 with 12 homers in his 44 games at AA. He’s struck out just 39 times and walked an incredible 36 times, and it’s quite clear that AA pitching is not going to present him with the kind of challenge he needs to continue developing the bat. That is to say, yeah, he’s going to be promoted to AAA sooner rather than later, likely within the next couple weeks.
From there, he’ll keep working on his defense and receiving behind the plate, and, as we’ve discussed, the Cubs will have to decide how they want to approach the August/September window with him, possibly calling him up to be a bench bat/occasional starter, or letting him finish out the year at Iowa.
