Kyle Schwarber…Future Hall of Famer?
- Sheehan Planas-Arteaga
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
As the home runs keep flying for Kyle Schwarber, he's creating quite a pickle for future Hall of Fame voters.
Certain milestones in Major League Baseball make you a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. Plenty of guys with under 300 career wins had better careers than guys with more than 300 wins, yet the 300+ pitchers are in Cooperstown, while the 200-something pitchers aren’t. Same goes for hits, where the auto-HOF induction kicks in at 3,000.
Home runs are like that too; hit 500 or more bombs, and you’re in (unless you took steroids and your name isn’t David Ortiz). Kyle Schwarber, the home run-hitting savant of the Philadelphia Phillies, is very likely going to finish his career with over 500 long balls.
The problem is, his overall résumé won’t be close to Hall of Fame standards. What is one to do?
Fantastic Luck
Hall of Fame voters have been very fortunate to avoid a situation like this in the past. For whatever reason, other home run hitters who didn’t contribute enough to warrant Hall of Fame induction never reached 500 homers, with all of them falling just short somewhere in the 400s. 50-60 career Wins Above Replacement (WAR), essentially, how many wins your performances contributed to, is the baseline for getting a plaque in Cooperstown, Harold Baines aside.
No hitter who hit over 500 homers ever had below 50 career bWAR (Baseball Reference’s model). David Ortiz, at 55.1, is the least valuable player who ever hit 500 over more. When you get into the 400s, however, you find a lot of guys who weren’t all that close to 50 wins.
Carlos Delgago hit 473 homers and accounted for 44.4 bWAR. Out on the first ballot. Nelson Cruz hit 464 and had 42 bWAR. Jose Canseco? 462 and 42.4. Adam Dunn? Also 462 and 18(!) bWAR. Dave Kingman was at 442 homers and a paltry 17.3 bWAR. Paul Konerko was at 439 and 28.1. The list goes on. Just one or two more typical seasons from these players would have sent them over the 500-home run threshold, yet their WAR total likely would not have crossed 50. Somehow, someway, the one-dimensional slugger has always lived around 400-and-something home runs, which has taken away any headaches for voters who would be forced to weigh arbitrary milestones with actual on-field contribution.
Kyle Schwarber will be the first to make them pick a side. Milestones or overall production?
Schwarber’s Pace
Kyle Schwarber has hit 360 homers in his career. He leads the Majors this season with 20, after leading the National League last season with 56. He has a real shot at joining the 60-home run club. He’s put up 21.4 bWAR in his 12-year career: he ain’t sniffin’ 50 when he’s all said and done. 500 tanks, though? That’s well within his reach.
He will be right around 400 once this season is over. Schwarber turned 33 in March and conceivably has two to three more elite power seasons in him. He has been incredibly durable, missing a total of 21 out of 648 games from 2022 to 2025. The opportunities will be there for him. Hell, 600 bombs might be possible if he keeps marching along at his current pace.
What to do?
Kyle Schwarber has had a nice career thus far, making three All-Star Games, winning a Silver Slugger, and being a key piece in the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series run. But he’s not a Hall of Famer. I think the voters will see that when his time comes, no matter how many balls he hits over the fence.
Perhaps it will also force them to re-examine cases like Carlos Delgado, who was essentially David Ortiz-lite, yet had polar opposite results when he was up for induction (falling off altogether after receiving less than 5% of the vote, versus first ballot induction).
For what it’s worth, I played Summer ball in the same league as Kyle Schwarber my sophomore year of college, and he hit the farthest ball I’ve ever seen in my life in pre-game batting practice. So even though he might not make it to Cooperstown, he’s still got that going for him, which is nice.
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