Bleacher Bums Forum

I'm an eternal optimist, but I'm hopeful that Schwarber's 2nd half and season overall will not be too much fluke.  I've always thought he'd have a chance to put together a .250 season, and if he ever did that HR's and numbers would follow.  I think it's possible that he might hit .250 again before his control finishes, and with it the kind of slugging that accompanies it for him. 

I think over his career, he's been making a variety of adjustments.  How much to crouch or not; I think he made some adjustment to stand a little straighter.  Obviously going opposite has been an emphasis; I think for a hunk of this year that was to the extreme.  Seemed like he was very committed to popping to left; some of that got enough lift to carry out, lots were easy flyouts.  But my perception was that he was so left-field oriented that he was NOT using the whole field and was so weight-shift committed to aiming for left field that then pitchers would work inside, or hang breaking balls that he should drive to right, that he wasn't using the pull side or taking advantage very consistently. 

Seems to me that during the strong finish, his balance and weight-shift was better, so that he was effectively pulling the ball in addition to going opposite.  So I'm hopeful that he's kind of settled into a stance and a weight transfer balance that is better for him, and that he'll be able to stick with.  Obviously he's going to be a hot-and-cold guy, good pitchers are going to blitz him, lefties locating their stuff are going to blitz him, and fastballs above the belt are going to blow through his swing.  So I'm not anticipating some .275-average guy with a .950-OPS or anything to be sustainable.  But his composite .250-average .871OPS from this year, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't repeat that again, during a year in which he stays healthy.