With Another Colossal Postseason Homer, the Legend of Kyle Schwarber Grows

The home run that Kyle Schwarber hit off Zac Gallen in the sixth inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series wasn’t his biggest of this year’s postseason, unless we’re talking strictly about distance. Like most of Schwarber’s homers, the 461-foot shot was a sight to behold as well as one of the biggest plays of a game that pushed the Phillies to within a win of a return trip to the World Series. With it, the legend of the 30-year-old slugger’s already impressive body of postseason work — which has been aided by his taking trips to the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons — grew even larger.

Schwarber had already helped the Phillies jump ahead of Gallen and the Diamondbacks on Saturday with perhaps his least impressive hit of the postseason. Leading off the first inning, he hit a 30-mph dribbler to third base, then came around to score via singles by Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott; Harper added another run by stealing home on the front end of a delayed double-steal. The score was still 2-0 when Schwarber came up in the top of the sixth. Gallen hung a 2-0 curveball right in the middle of the zone and Schwarber annihilated it:

If you’re wondering about distance — and with a blast like that, who wouldn’t? — that was the fifth-longest postseason homer of the Statcast era. Schwarber owns the second-longest as well, via a 488-footer from last year’s NLCS opener, which trails only a 491-footer by Willson Contreras in Game 4 of the 2017 NLCS.

This homer was Schwarber’s second off Gallen in the series. On the Arizona ace’s first pitch of Game 1, he threw a 92-mph fastball more or less down Broadway, and Schwarber sent it 420 feet into right field to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead. He added a pair of homers off Merrill Kelly in Game 2, and one off Kyle Nelson in Game 4. The last of those, a fourth-inning solo shot that cut the lead to 2-1, has the highest WPA of the bunch at .105, where his Game 5 one weighed in at .084. Fortunately for the Diamondbacks, all five have come with the bases empty, and they’ve faced Schwarber just five times in 22 plate appearances with a runner on base, limiting the damage. Gallen induced him to hit into a fielder’s choice with two on in the fourth inning of Game 1, Brandon Pfaadt struck him out with a man on second in the third inning of Game 3, Ryan Thompson intentionally walked him with a man on third in the seventh inning of Game 4, and Miguel Castro did likewise with a man on second in the seventh inning of Game 5; in the ninth inning of that one, Slade Cecconi got him to hit into a double play.

Schwarber’s five homers ties the NLCS record set by the Dodgers’ Corey Seager in 2020 and is one short of the major league LCS record held by the Rangers’ Nelson Cruz from 2011; he’s got at least one more game to add to that total. Though he went homerless in both the Wild Card Series against the Marlins and the Division Series against the Braves, he’s already tied for fourth in career postseason homers, helped by his reaching the postseason every year but in 2019 with the Cubs:

Of course, the increasing number of postseason games via the addition of the LCS, Division Series, and Wild Card rounds has a whole lot to do with Schwarber’s position on the board as well as those of his contemporaries in his vicinity, four of whom are still playing in the LCS. Just hours before Schwarber hit his big shot on Friday night, Jose Altuve clubbed a three-run homer that proved decisive in the Astros’ ALCS Game 5 win over the Rangers.

On a per plate appearance basis, Schwarber owns the fifth-highest home run rate among players with at least 10 postseason homers:

It’s not like Schwarber’s power is any big surprise, as he clubbed a career-high 47 homers this year, one more than last year; where he led the NL in 2022, he fell seven short of Matt Olson’s league-leading total this year. The homers aside, it was an odd season, as he finished with just a .197/.343/.474 line. In fact, he set a record for the most homers of any player with a batting average below the Mendoza Line:

Along those same lines, Schwarber had the second-highest wRC+ of any player with a sub-.200 average thanks to his 17.5% walk rate, the majors’ second highest behind that of Juan Soto:

It’s a testament to the Phillies’ patience and understanding of what Schwarber brings to the table that he even played enough to qualify for the batting title despite that low average; indeed, his 720 PA is also a record for a player with a sub-.200 average. The vast majority of those PA — 502 of them, to be exact — came out of the leadoff spot, where he hit .205/.345/.493 with 34 homers; among players with at least 300 PA out of the leadoff spot, his 124 wRC+ was a respectable 12th, his SLG sixth. His 11 leadoff homers trailed only Mookie Betts‘ 12; he wound up two short of the single-season record set by Alfonso Soriano in 2003.

Schwarber’s batting average owed to a .209 BABIP, the second-lowest mark among qualifiers ahead of only Pete Alonso’s .205. In the first year of the shift ban, he pulled the ball more than ever (53.9%, a hair over 10 points above last year’s mark and over eight points above his career mark), though with fewer defenders piled on the right side of the infield, his .161 average on his 93 pulled grounders was a vast improvement on last year (.081 in 84 AB), when he hit .218/.323/.504 (129 wRC+) overall. But he also had more low-quality contact than ever; 60% of his batted balls were either classified as weak, topped, or under, leading to a lot of routine outs. In 224 PA (including three sacrifice flies) within those classifications, he hit .081 and slugged .145; while the resultant .094 wOBA in those PA was his best since 2020, it still accounted for a larger share of his batted balls, and his overall quality of contact took a step back, though his average exit velocity and barrel rate placed in the 94th and 96th percentiles, respectively.

As for the postseason version of Schwarber, a year ago, he hit .218/.392/.545 (151 wRC+) with six homers in 74 PA. This year, he’s up to .262/.367/.690 (169 wRC+) with five homers in 49 PA. Obviously, the sample sizes are smaller, but holy moly, is he just obliterating baseballs:

During last year’s postseason, Schwarber got great results even with a slightly lesser contact quality than in the regular season. This year he’s increased his rate of good contact and reduced his rate of poor contact — and yes, we’re talking about only 26 batted balls, not enough for the sample to stabilize, but wow. That’s a guy who’s locked in at the plate. Check out his plate discipline stats:

Schwarber is seeing more pitches in the zone, and not only is he swinging at more of them, he’s laying off more pitches outside the zone. He’s not walking as much (12.2%, compared to 17.5% in the regular season), but he’s not whiffing as much either, and as noted above, his quality of contact is much better.

Schwarber isn’t the only one doing damage in the Phillies lineup. As a team, the Phillies are hitting .265/.347/.527 with 23 homers in 11 postseason games, and in the NLCS, it’s .253/.337/.513 with 10 homers in five games. As Yahoo’s Zach Crizer wrote, they’re keeping things very simple for themselves, going to the plate with a plan — whether it’s to hunt fastballs, swing at the first pitch or early in the count — and then being aggressive when the pitcher throws whatever it is they’re looking for in the zone.

“If your plan is being on a fastball, or if it’s looking here, looking there — whatever it is, staying to your plan,” Schwarber said after Game 5. “That’s the key to baseball, is when you get a pitch to hit, you don’t want to miss it.”

Thanks to that one weird trick, Harper and Nick Castellanos each have five postseason homers as well, making them the third postseason trio to hit so many; last year, Harper, Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins did so, while the 2017 Astros had Altuve, Correa and Springer each reach five (you’re free to apply an asterisk to that one). If you need a reminder of how power plays in October, this Phillies team is it, and quite frankly, they’re entertaining as hell. With the team in a commanding position, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll get to see more drives like the one Schwarber hit on Saturday night, and I can hardly wait.