We’ve Never Seen A Leadoff Hitter Quite Like Kyle Schwarber

At this point in his career, Kyle Schwarber has done more than enough to cement his name into the conversation as one of the game’s best lefty-swinging power hitters. The 10-year veteran has suited up for four different teams and he’s been a prolific slugger at each stop.

A two-time All-Star who has hit 30 or more home runs six times – including each of the past three years – Schwarber has been deployed in a rather untraditional way dating back to 2019. While typical power hitters are somewhere between third and fifth in a nightly starting lineup, Schwarber has gotten a ton of playing time … in the leadoff spot?

To followers of the game from any other generation, such a thought would be ludicrous. How can you deploy a hitter who strikes out 200 times a year and has at times struggled to even hit .200?

Schwarber is singlehandedly changing how the leadoff hitter is viewed. On Tuesday night, he set the MLB record for most leadoff home runs in a single season after he hit his 14th such big fly. In doing so, he passed Alfonso Soriano, who hit 13 in 2003 for the Yankees.

What at first was viewed with a collective sense of head-scratching around the league has resulted in one of the more unique (but successful) leadoff hitters of all-time. Let’s take a closer look at how Schwarber has found a way to excel in this role and why, ultimately, it fits him so well.

Kyle Schwarber Is A Unique Leadoff Hitter

Over the years, we’ve seen some of the very best players in baseball function as leadoff hitters. Jose Altuve, Francisco Lindor, Mookie Betts and Ronald Acuna Jr. are some of the more recent examples, but Rickey Henderson stands out as a past player who was born for this role. Ditto for the likes of Juan Pierre and Ichiro Suzuki.

A standard leadoff hitter is one who finds a way to get on base at all costs. In the past, speedsters would use their frequent slap singles and out-of-this-world speed to reach base, playing a style of baseball that requires a strong contact ability but no power.

Schwarber is pretty much the opposite of that. He is all power. But something he does very well is draw walks.

In the grand scheme of things, a walk is the exact same thing as a single to lead off a game. In both scenarios, you’re getting yourself on base for some of the big run producers behind you in the lineup to drive you in. Schwarber is a major “three true outcomes” type of player, but his uncanny ability to draw a free pass makes him an outstanding option to lead off a game.

Entering the day, Schwarber has a 15.8% walk percentage this year, which is good for third in all of baseball (first in the National League), behind only Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Outside of those two Yankee juggernauts, “Schwarbs” is pretty much in a league of his own, as his walk percentage is just under three percent higher than the next best player.

Origin Story

The first time a team gave Schwarber an extended shot at hitting leadoff was back in 2017 when he was a member of the Chicago Cubs. Naturally, this raised a lot of eyebrows. How could such a slow, clumsy player hit in such an important spot?

At first, it didn’t work out. He started 36 games in the spot and hit seven home runs in that span but also had an OPS of just .693, frequently looking like a fish out of water.

Joe Maddon, the Cubs’ manager at the time, gave it another shot in 2019 and he quickly looked like an evil genius. Schwarber hit 11 home runs in his first 30 games at the top of Chicago’s lineup. By the end of the season, he had 17 home runs out of the leadoff spot and a cool .825 OPS to go along with it.

This time, the experiment was working. The hulking slugger had two additional years of experience under his belt by the time 2019 rolled around, and he looked so much more comfortable and in his element.

Schwarber’s leadoff days took a brief intermission in 2020 but he returned to the spot in 2021 with a vengeance. He’s essentially

In 2021, his OPS in 27 games was 1.216 atop the lineup. In 2022, he hit 38 home runs with an .823 OPS in 123 games. 2023 saw him hit 34 more bombs while posting an .837 OPS.

Now, he’s at 35 home runs and an .870 OPS. In the second half, he’s been incredible too – hitting 16 home runs in 49 games with a 153 wRC+. He’s taken exactly one at-bat this year in a non-leadoff spot in the lineup, so this is clearly his permanent home. The stats suggest he’s totally fine with that.

Proving the Haters Wrong

As previously mentioned, Schwarber is very, very far from a typical leadoff hitter. He’s not fast, he barely hits anything that isn’t a loud single or a double in the gap and he strikes out a ton. This leads to fans of the game, including this one on Reddit that took some serious exception to him leading off last year, rioting when the big man gets a look in such an unorthodox spot in the starting lineup.

All he’s done since being given the reigns is slug. Schwarber is a true masher and he’s certainly the first of his kind. Remember: things have changed in the game of baseball. The most important job for a leadoff hitter is to get on base and set the table for the bats behind you. It doesn’t matter what you look like, how slow you are or how often you strikeout. If you get on base, you could be a successful leadoff hitter.

Schwarber helps his case tenfold by possessing light-tower power, too. His job is to find a way to get on, but if he can hit the ball to the next city over instead, the Philadelphia Phillies will take that automatic 1-0 lead in a heartbeat.

Leadoff Leaderboards

In case you need any more convincing that Schwarber’s a one-of-a-kind leadoff hitter, let’s turn our attentions to the leaderboards and see what they have to say.

Amongst batters hitting in the one-hole in the lineup (min. 150 PA), he’s in a league of his own in almost every single non-stolen-base category. Here’s how the 31-year-old stacks up:

That’ll play, right?

Schwarber’s still got a ways to go to catch Henderson on the all-time leaderboards for most leadoff homers. Henderson holds the record with 81 of them and Blue Jays outfielder George Springer is second with 60 and Soriano is third with 54.

As of right now, Schwarber’s already made his way up to ninth on the all-time list, with 45. He’s only one home run behind Jimmy Rollins, two behind Curtis Granderson and three behind Ian Kinsler.

The fact that he’s still only 31 means that there are still years of time left on Schwarber’s career. Hitting 36 more leadoff home runs may be too tall of a task, but he’s already made his mark as one of the most unique to ever do it.

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