If Kyle Schwarber gets his arms extended the barrel of the bat on the ball, look out.
The former IU and current Philadelphia Phillies star hit 93 home runs in 2022 and 2023 combined.
What’s his secret?
Baseball Savant rolled out a new bat speed metric a couple weeks ago, as measured by Statcast, and it provides a major clue.
Schwarber has the third-fastest swing in the Majors at 77.1 mph. Only the Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton (80.5) and Oneil Cruz (77.8) of the Pirates swing faster.
Schwarber’s fast swing rate — or his percentage of swings that are 75 mph or faster — is 73.7%, also third best in the Majors behind Stanton (98.0%) and Cruz (74.9%).
“It’s more of an ability,” he said. “I’ve never done any bat-speed training or anything like that. There are things that you work on during the offseason in the weight room that can help that. But it’s not like I’m focusing on bat speed. I think you try to train to be explosive, not focus on being explosive with the hand positioning or anything like that.”
Based on the new data, higher bat speed generally translates to a higher batting average. But Schwarber is more of an outlier in that regard, hitting below .220 for the third straight year.
But the power is undeniable. Now in his 10th year in the MLB, Schwarber has 255 career home runs, and a 162 game average of 40. He’s just 25 homers from passing Ted Kluszewski for most by a former Indiana player.
Schwarber discussed what he believes are the keys to his quick swing.
“I think, for us, it’s just trying to be as short as we can to the baseball,” Schwarber said. “If that’s eliminating different kind of moves preemptively before the swing or anything like that, where you can get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ as efficiently as you can, that’s kind of what you look for. It’s like, ‘Why might I be missing pitches?’ That split millisecond could be the difference between fouling off a pitch and barreling one up.”
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
