NEWSLETTER
Frank Schwindel, who is one of the easiest players to root for in recent memory, looks like he plays the game with the joy and spark of someone who knows his big league career could wrap at any moment. His personality off the field matches, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have only good things to say about him. At bottom, we want good players to succeed because they help the Cubs win games, and that’s what we’ll enjoy most in the long run. But baked into that is wanting to see good people succeed because we enjoy that success vicariously.
That is to say, it was really wonderful to see Schwindel’s huge game last night, with two oppo homers and and single, helping the Cubs drub the Reds.
Everybody knows that Schwindel, a later-aged breakout who only got his first real extended look in the big leagues last year, was on his way back to Triple-A earlier this month. Thanks to an unexpected combination of injuries, COVID, and a nail in his tire, Schwindel came back immediately after he was “optioned” to Iowa. That first night back, after catching a flight to San Diego earlier that day – squishing into the middle of the row because, whatever, you take what you can get in that situation – Schwindel had another bad game. Given his 24 hours, you can easily excuse it. The next night, he pinch hit and came within inches of hitting a game-winning grand slam.
Since that game, Schwindel has hit .294/.333/.588/156 wRC+, with a 16.7% K rate, a 5.6% BB rate, a 26.2% line drive rate, and a 40.5% hard contact rate.
It’s 13 games. So, as always, that could just be normal variance, and it doesn’t wash away the 27 games that came before. You don’t want to start assuming that Schwindel magically fixed his timing at the plate because of the mere threat of a demotion.
Instead, you just note that the timing is certainly interesting, and, for over two weeks now, Schwindel has been hitting like the guy he was last year. That guy – a multiple-time player of the month – is also probably not the real Schwindel, but you can reasonably hope that he something a shade worse than that, rather than merely a shade better than his disastrous first month this season.
For his part, manager David Ross sees actual improvement (Cubs.com): “I think his timing just continues to get better and better every time you see him in the box. He’s on a lot of pitches. I think staying on that breaking ball up the middle was really impressive as well.”
It’s worth keeping in mind that Schwindel’s style is of the swing-often, extend-the-zone, make-lots-of-contact variety. I have seen research to suggest that style does not always age well because it is so reliant on having really good bat speed and really good timing (because pitches outside the strike zone are, by their nature, difficult to hit really hard). So even though he’s only just now getting a foothold in the big leagues, you do have to remember that Schwindel turns 30 in June, so he’ll be walking a fine line the next few years in trying to make his style continue to work (and/or improve it at the margins). It’s fair to be a little more sensitive to the periods where he’s just not making quality contact, and wondering if he won’t be able to get it back.
That said, he’s shown that it *can* work for him over long stretches of time, and I think he’s demonstrated that he’s in enough of a groove with his timing that the Cubs cannot send him to Iowa whenever other position players return. I think the Cubs have to ride this at least to midseason, and if Schwindel is still raking, then they can evaluate whether he’s a clear 2023 starter for them, or whether there is a team that wants to make an actually-meaningful trade for a pre-arb first base bat.
And all the while, I’ll be enjoying the ride, rooting for Schwindel to keep succeeding. It’s just so much fun to see him do his thing out there.
