In the last two days, former Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber has hit five homers. My only reaction, sincerely, is good for him.
The five homers have him up to a whopping 18 on the season, half of which have come in his last 10 games. Dude is on a homer BINGE:
Schwarber’s 18 homers have him tied for 6th in baseball, and his season slash line is now up to a very Schwarber-like .241/.325/.518, and the 126 wRC+ would be the best of his career over a full season. And since the Cubs very explicitly chose to go with Joc Pederson for a year over Schwarber for a year, you’re going to see the comparison’s start popping up again (the timing was imprecise, because the Cubs’ decision on Schwarber came much earlier, but I think it’s fairly clear they had already decided to move on from Schwarber by the time he signed with the Nationals and they instead went with Pederson).
On the year, Pederson is hitting .246/.308/.462 (110 wRC+), which is great given where he started out in the first couple weeks, but clearly Schwarber is outpacing him by quite a bit right now. Pederson is striking out a little less than Schwarber, so there’s that, but Schwarber is actually rating much better defensively (and we’ve seen Pederson routinely pulled late for a defensive upgrade, which was not supposed to be an issue for him – indeed, defense was supposed to be a separator in Pederson’s favor). All things considered, then, Schwarber has posted a 1.4 WAR so far to Pederson’s 0.6. I don’t think anyone is screaming angrily just yet, because again, Pederson has been very good since he came back from the Injured List in May. But Schwarber’s uber hot streak has really put him in a good place in the results department.
Good for him. Both guys figure to be free agents again after this season (each has a mutual option for 2022, but I don’t expect either to be exercised), so they’ll once again be head-to-head in free agency.