The Chicago White Sox might want to consider Kyle Schwarber for the 2021 season.
The Chicago White Sox are a team headed in the right direction. They have been getting better slowly but surely and 2021 looks like the year that they could win it all. Obviously, there are many good teams in Major League Baseball so nothing is even close to a given in this league. What is fair to assume is that the good teams will go down every avenue to try and make their team better. The White Sox will be no different.
One player that they could consider is Kyle Schwarber. He was non-tendered by the Chicago Cubs yesterday night and is going to be a free agent. Jed Hoyer, the Cubs general manager, claims they will work to see if they can bring him back but we all know he is more than likely gone. The Cubs are going in a different direction as it sounds like all of their key players are available.
Schwarber, while non-tendered, was one of the key players to their recent success and there is no doubt about it. He is a very flawed baseball player but he is very capable of being a productive power hitter. He has hit north of 35 home runs and had more than 90 RBIs in a season before. Going into his age 28 season, there are plenty of reasons to think he can do it again.
This White Sox team already has a power-hitting left fielder that is horrible defensively but one of Eloy Jimenez or Kyle Schwarber could be a DH. Jimenez is the better player but both of them would look nice in the middle of the White Sox lineup. 2020 wasn’t good to Schwarber at the plate but there is no doubt he could bounce back in 2021, especially on a good team.
One thing that Schwarber has that almost no one on the White Sox has is deep playoff experience. In 2016, he didn’t make it back from injury until the World Series but he was pivitol to the Cubs defeating the Cleveland Indians. He had a remarkable .412 batting average over 20 plate appearances to help the Cubs finally win it all.
Adding experience like that to the White Sox might go a long way for a young group trying to take the next step. This might be an unrealistic possibility or Rick Hahn might have better ideas in mind but it is certainly something to consider. For Schwarber, he’d be going to the new best team in Chicago so he wouldn’t even have to move.