Kyle Schwarber goes to WAR

[Sandwich Pick]

This reads to me like one of those ‘how bad could Jeter’s defense be if NY keeps winning’ attempted defenses of him from back in the day.

Jeter’s defense was indeed quite bad, but Schwarber has literally been the worst defensive player in MLB by DRS this year.

https://fieldingbible.com/DRSLeaderboard

The Phillies regular starting corner OF (Castellanos & Schwarber) have combined to cost the team 30 runs this year in nearly 2100 innings.

CF Johan Rojas has somehow been up to the task of saving 14 runs in 328 innings. He has a 1.5 dWAR and 2.3 WAR overall in that span.

 

[jon abbey]

CF Johan Rojas has somehow been up to the task of saving 14 runs in 328 innings. He has a 1.5 dWAR and 2.3 WAR overall in that span.

Living up to Neon Deion Sanders' old statement of "Water covers two-thirds of the Earth. I cover the rest."

 

[joe dokes]

Truth. BBRef has his offensive WAR at 2.7 and his total WAR at 0.5. So the moral of the story seems to be that he is indeed that good at the plate and that bad in the field.

It's hard to overstate how bad he is in the field. He's not, like, "Manny Ramirez has no range" bad. He's "a pop-fly to the outfield is a white-knuckle event" bad, or "not able to catch batted balls at the level expected of a professional ballplayer" bad, like what would happen if you took someone from the local rec league and told them to go stand in left field. In 101 games this year (and in the Year of "Everything Is A Hit!") he has five errors in left; there are only seven teams in baseball that have more than five errors in left field this season.

This reminds me of the description of Hector Lopez in the Great American Baseball Card book:

"the worst fielding third baseman in the history of baseball. Everyone knows that. It is more or less a matter of public record. But I do feel called upon somehow to try to indicate, if only for the historical archivists among us, the sheer depths of his innovative barbarousness. Hector Lopez was a butcher. Pure and Simple. A butcher. His range was about one step to either side, his hands seemed to be made of concrete and his defensive attitude was so cavalier and arbitrary as to hardly constitute an attitude at all. Hector did not simply field a groundball, he attacked it. Like a farmer trying to kill a snake with a stick. And his mishandling of routine infield flies was the sort of which legends are made. Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a third baseman. In fact, Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a baseball player. Hector Lopez was, when every factor has been taken into consideration, a bad fielder for a human being. The stands are full of obnoxious leather-lunged cretins who insist they can play better than most major leaguers. Well, in Hector's case they could have been right. I would like to go on record right here and now as declaring Hector Lopez the all-time worst fielding major league ballplayer. That's quite a responsibility there, Hector, but I have every confidence you'll be able to live up to it."

The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book - Wikipedia

 

[jon abbey]

This reminds me of the description of Hector Lopez in the Great American Baseball Card book:



The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book - Wikipedia

Posting using almost 40 year old memories, but when I was in college, there was a mock edition of the NY Post (done by other people), a post-apocalyptic one. There was a very memorable story (for me anyway) about the Yankees using the gravestone of Toby Harrah to play 3B, they said the range was similar to Harrah while alive.

 

[Sandwich Pick]

Living up to Neon Deion Sanders' old statement of "Water covers two-thirds of the Earth. I cover the rest."

Deion definitely could. Rojas pretty much has to. What they're currently getting out of him at the plate is a bonus.

 

[Kliq]

An interesting player historically to look at is Dante Bichette. Despite being a career .299 hitter and 274 home runs and four all-star appearances, Bichette has a career WAR of 5.6 over his 14 year career. It's pretty amazing to see that contrast when you look at his B-Ref page.

The reason his WAR is so low is a combination of his Schwarber-level defense, along with playing at Coors Field in an era where his hitting accomplishments are not as impressive as they would be in any other time. For example, in 1998 he led the league with 218 hits, hit .331 with 22 homers and 48 doubles, but only had an OPS+ of 108. In 1999, he hit .298 with 34 homers and 38 doubles, had an OPS of .895 and was somehow worth -2.3 WAR, one of the worst seasons EVER according to WAR.

 

[Seels]

Not that Schwarber is alone in it, but the last 2-3 years have soured me on WAR a bit. I think positional adjustments in general are somewhere between arbitrary and completely made up, and the defensive numbers just amplify it. I can buy Schwarber has had a bad year and hasn't been worth much. I can't buy that a guy that is a significantly worse than average offensive player is somehow a better player, or significantly better, like Daulton Varsho or Willy Adames.

 

[GreenMonster49]

As noted in this MLB.com article written by Mike Lupica, Kyle Schwarber is having a very unusual season. Schwarber is set to become the first player in MLB history to hit 40 homers, score 100 runs, strikeout 200 times and bat below .200 (currently he is hitting .198).

What Lupica doesn't mention in his article is despite having cracked 45 home runs and scored 102 runs, and sporting an OPS+ of 122, Schwarber is functionally a replacement level player by WAR. bWAR has him at 0.5 WAR this season, and climbing that high has been a pretty recent development, for most of the season he was flirting with being below replacement level.

What Lupica also doesn't mention is that there have been only 18 batter-seasons of 200 or more strikeouts. (Schwarber has two of them, of course, including this season.) Actually, there could be 20 by the end of this season, as Teoscar Hernandez has 195 and Ryan McMahon has 185 as of this morning, but in any case when you have only 18 data points, it is not hard to filter the other 17 out.

 

[jon abbey]

I can buy Schwarber has had a bad year and hasn't been worth much. I can't buy that a guy that is a significantly worse than average offensive player is somehow a better player, or significantly better, like Daulton Varsho or Willy Adames.

Varsho has literally been the best defensive player in all of MLB this season and that is just in LF and CF, he is also an adequate catcher if needed (the Blue Jays have too many catchers already so he has not caught at all this season), and Schwarber has literally been the worst, all positions combined. DRS has Varsho at 47 runs better, 26 to -21.

https://fieldingbible.com/DRSLeaderboard

Personally I think defense and baserunning is actually still underappreciated in impact compared to offense. For instance, I don't watch many TOR games but I have to think that their pitching staff feels exceptionally comfortable throwing strikes with the all-CF OF of Varsho, Kiermaier and Springer behind them tracking down almost everything. JBJ is a good example from recent BOS past, great defensive OFs really impact games IMO, especially CFs.

 

[jon abbey]

If an OF fucks up just one ball, that can easily mean 10 or 15 or more additional pitches that inning, and especially now with the less time to rest between pitches, that can sometimes end up as a huge inning that decides the game.

And if that pitcher then comes out an inning or two earlier because of elevated pitch count, that has an impact on the entire staff not just that night, but also a rolling effect for future games, the extra 1-2 innings needed tonight weakens tomorrow's options.

And of course the flip side, great defensive plays get pitchers off the mound quicker, they can go deeper, bullpen is stronger for the next night.

 

[Seels]

Varsho has literally been the best defensive player in all of MLB this season and that is just in LF and CF, he is also an adequate catcher if needed (the Blue Jays have too many catchers already).

https://fieldingbible.com/DRSLeaderboard

Personally I think defense and baserunning is actually still underappreciated in impact compared to offense. For instance, I don't watch many TOR games but I have to think that their pitching staff feels exceptionally comfortable throwing strikes with the all-CF OF of Varsho, Kiermaier and Springer behind them tracking down almost everything. JBJ is a good example from recent BOS past, great defensive OFs really impact games IMO, especially CFs.

He's also a blah baserunner and one of the worst offensive players in baseball.

I'm glad you brought up Kiermaier. 7 war in 2015 despite a sub .300 obp. For me that just doesn't fly. WAR has him as equal to Donaldson, the MVP. There's no planet that an all glove no bat OF provides as much value as an average fielding 150+ ops third baseman. There's a reason guys like Kiermaier and Simmons and other all glove players never make much more than average starter pay - so it's not like teams are thinking this is some missed opportunity.

 

[jon abbey]

@VORP Speed can speak to Kiermaier, curious for his perspective there.

Bloom and Dombrowski both clearly agree with you here as far as corner OFs FWIW, those two signed all three of Schwarber and Castellanos and Yoshida the last two years.

 

[Deweys New Stance]

Living up to Neon Deion Sanders' old statement of "Water covers two-thirds of the Earth. I cover the rest."

FWIW, Coach Prime wasn't the first to use that line. Ralph Kiner said it about Garry Maddux back in the 70's, and I doubt he came up with it either. And I love that quote about Hector Lopez (I read that book about 100 times when I was a kid), but I also recall Jim Bouton in Ball Four calling him Hector "What a Pair of Hands" Lopez because Lopez once bailed him out with a couple great plays at 3B in their Yankee days.

As for the subject of this thread, the Dave Kingman comp someone made above would be perfect except a) Schwarber walks much more frequently and b) he seems like a pretty good guy, while Kingman was a massive asshole. Kingman was the most awkward outfielder (and 1st baseman) I've ever seen; he had absolutely no idea at all how to judge fly balls. He had a bit of a career renaissance at age 35 with Oakland when he finally ended up with an AL team for a full season; shocking that it took that long for him become a DH.

 

[jon abbey]

FWIW, Coach Prime wasn't the first to use that line. Ralph Kiner said it about Garry Maddux back in the 70's, and I doubt he came up with it either.

I researched this quickly before posting looking for attribution, good to know. Deion the media master as always...

 

[yalesoxfan]

If an OF fucks up just one ball, that can easily mean 10 or 15 or more additional pitches that inning, and especially now with the less time to rest between pitches, that can sometimes end up as a huge inning that decides the game.

And if that pitcher then comes out an inning or two earlier because of elevated pitch count, that has an impact on the entire staff not just that night, but also a rolling effect for future games, the extra 1-2 innings needed tonight weakens tomorrow's options.

And of course the flip side, great defensive plays get pitchers off the mound quicker, they can go deeper, bullpen is stronger for the next night.

A study in 2017 showed that after an error, opposing team's batting avg. increased 18 points, OBP increased 22 points, and SLG increased 19 points: Baseball statistics: the impact of fielding errors on MLB pitching staffs (calltothepen.com). The study showed little correlation with wins. It would be interesting to see this data over several seasons.

 

[Brohamer of the Gods]

Varsho has literally been the best defensive player in all of MLB this season and that is just in LF and CF, he is also an adequate catcher if needed (the Blue Jays have too many catchers already so he has not caught at all this season), and Schwarber has literally been the worst, all positions combined. DRS has Varsho at 47 runs better, 26 to -21.

https://fieldingbible.com/DRSLeaderboard

Personally I think defense and baserunning is actually still underappreciated in impact compared to offense. For instance, I don't watch many TOR games but I have to think that their pitching staff feels exceptionally comfortable throwing strikes with the all-CF OF of Varsho, Kiermaier and Springer behind them tracking down almost everything. JBJ is a good example from recent BOS past, great defensive OFs really impact games IMO, especially CFs.

It is interesting that list has Yoshida and Duvall at the same score, -6. They get there in different ways, but I don't think that anyone who has watched the Red Sox all year would consider those two to be equal defenders. It has Yoshida as -7 on PART, 0 on GFP/DME, and 1 for arm. Duvall as -5 on PART, -2 on GFP/DME, and 1 for arm. Maybe that is a reflection of balls that Yoshida doesn't get to in time to make a misplay on?

It also has Kike Hernandez as -1, which I think is more of a reality of his superior OF defense covering up the train wreck of burning dumpsters that was his time playing short.

 

[joe dokes]

It is interesting that list has Yoshida and Duvall at the same score, -6. They get there in different ways, but I don't think that anyone who has watched the Red Sox all year would consider those two to be equal defenders. It has Yoshida as -7 on PART, 0 on GFP/DME, and 1 for arm. Duvall as -5 on PART, -2 on GFP/DME, and 1 for arm. Maybe that is a reflection of balls that Yoshida doesn't get to in time to make a misplay on?

I think that's part of it with Yoshida. Although I've also read that LF in Fenway has caused some analytical glitches.
At the other end of the no-range spectrum was Ron LeFlore, who had great speed and range, but about whom it was said (perhaps by one of his managers) "He can drop anything he gets his glove on."

 

[VORP Speed]

@VORP Speed can speak to Kiermaier, curious for his perspective there.

Bloom and Dombrowski both clearly agree with you here as far as corner OFs FWIW, those two signed all three of Schwarber and Castellanos and Yoshida the last two years.

Kiermaier had an otherworldly defensive season in 2015. He was saving extra base hits and HR with incredible plays right and left and gunning down anyone who ran on him and preventing many others from even trying. I’m no authority in defensive metrics and the relative value of defense vs offense, but he was incredibly valuable and I tend to think that level of defense is under appreciated and worth more of a trade-off in offensive production than most of us would think makes sense at a gut reaction level.

 

[LogansDad]

I think that's part of it with Yoshida. Although I've also read that LF in Fenway has caused some analytical glitches.

This is where Savant becomes one of my favorite sites on the internet. Exit velo and stuff are fun and all, but you can look at a stat line and generally get a decent idea of how a guy has been hitting the ball over the long term. Defense is less intuitive and has been less "public" in the past, and the upgrades made over the last two years over at Savant are absolutely incredible, especially as someone who much prefers and exciting defensive play over a home run.

That said, my eye test this year has told me that Duvall is a below average center fielder. The numbers seem to back that up for the most part. Keep in mind that, while he was a gold glove winner in 2021, that was as a right fielder, and was probably in large part due to him being second in the league in outfield assists. He had only played about 75 games in CF in his career before this season, and it shows. I know his bombs are fun, but I am 100% okay with the team moving on from him after this year.

Also, seriously, my favorite part of Savant is that you can look at this chart, click on any of the dots, and watch the play instantaneously. It's an absolute miracle.



Duvall, for instance, has made three plays that fall into the 4 or 5 difficulty scale. Yoshida has made 1 four star catch, and Schwarber has made one 3 star or harder catch. There's a lot more that it covers that I won't go into while taking the thread off topic, but if anyone here doesn't use Savant, I think you should check it out. It is a phenomenal web site.

 

[iddoc]

Living up to Neon Deion Sanders' old statement of "Water covers two-thirds of the Earth. I cover the rest."

Even more relevant to the situation at hand, this was said about Gary Maddox…while he had Greg Luzinski in LF.