When the Phillies began to attack the free agency market in the winter of 2022, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was adamant about bringing in “gamers,” players who had won World Series titles, got their uniforms dirty, and embodied the ethos of Philadelphia. He believed those traits would permeate throughout the locker room and establish higher expectations for an organization that hadn’t made the playoffs in over a decade.
It wasn’t long before Dombrowski locked up Kyle Schwarber, whose credentials matched everything he was after: a World Series winner with perennial playoff experience and a clubhouse leader unafraid to make his presence felt for various teams. Schwarber, for his part, also loved cheesesteaks. The combination — his defensive inefficiencies notwithstanding — made him an ideal match to take the Phillies to the next level and reestablish its identity.
“I think adding a person like that who has won, knows how to win, is not afraid to say things in the clubhouse…I think it was really important for us to add that type of individual,” Dombrowski told WIP upon Schwarber’s signing in March of 2022.
“Important” might be an understatement now. In just two seasons, Schwarber has helped guide the Phillies to the doorstep of two consecutive World Series appearances and become the king of Red October, swatting baseballs like flies and watching them soar like satellites. That was on display once again during Saturday night’s crucial 6-1 Game 5 victory over the Diamondbacks, in which he sent a Zac Gallen curveball 461 feet to right field, an astronomical solo shot that gave the Phillies a 3-0 lead. The home run was his fifth in this NLCS alone and the 20th homer in his postseason career, tying him with Derek Jeter for fourth-most all-time.
Even bigger, it injected the Phillies with a shot of much-needed adrenaline. After two devastating late-inning losses in the desert that sucked up the team’s energy, Schwarber’s no-doubter helped reestablish the team’s swagger and “don’t miss” mentality. Leading by example proved to be the best medicine. Two batters later, Bryce Harper, seemingly inspired, clubbed his own mammoth rocket to right field, just 20 feet shorter than Schwarber’s, mimicking the lefty duo’s first-inning ambush on Gallen in Game 1.
“It’s just a jolt,” J.T. Realmuto told The Athletic after the game. “It’s honestly a jolt of energy to the whole dugout. Same thing with Bryce. When those guys get into one, it’s just a different type of sound. And it’s fun to celebrate those in the dugout because not a lot of other teams have guys on their team that can do that.”
As every national broadcast team felt obligated to point out this year, Schwarber has thrived in the leadoff spot despite not being a conventional leadoff hitter. His batting average (.197) didn’t help his case with baseball purists, but his 25 home runs and .379 on-base percentage (15th best in baseball) after the All-Star break showed his true-outcome approach might somehow work for a team built around mashing. After totaling 47 home runs on the year, he became the first player in Major League history to hit 40 homers while hitting below .200.
Despite the average, lack of speed, and almost non-existent stolen bases, the Phillies’ initial plan had always centered around Schwarber being a viable leadoff threat. Upon signing him, they had no obvious candidates to hit at the top of the order; instead, they relied on some small sample sizes to justify their lineup experimenting. After a few spurts trying it with the Cubs, Schwarber split time between the Nationals and Red Sox in 2021 and hit .297 with 17 homers in 27 games in that role. Why not try it?
“You attach yourself to the leadoff mentality of see pitches, get on base, [and] you want those guys behind you to feed off of you being on base and you can kind of get that misconstrued in what you’re doing up there,” Schwarber said at his introductory press conference. “[I] got that second go-around in 2019 and got a little bit better at it and in 2021, once I got put in there, I just made it my own.”
When Rob Thomson took over as manager in June last year, he remained loyal to keeping Schwarber as the leadoff man, even down the stretch, as he struggled through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Once the team traveled to San Diego, however, Thomson was rewarded for his patience when Schwarber blasted a solo homer off Yu Darvish to secure a victory. A few days later, he led off Game 3 with a dinger in Philadelphia. He clubbed three more in the World Series.
“I stopped thinking of it as a label and thought about it as just a position to hit,” Schwarber said. “You’re just the first guy to hit in the inning and then you’re hitting wherever after that. So it’s just taking your at-bat. I know what I do well, and I want to do what I do well all the time. And just because I’m hitting first shouldn’t change that.”
A year later with Turner in the fold and Harper on the Injured List to start the spring, the Phillies shuffled Schwarber throughout the lineup, hoping to create a heftier presence in the middle. But the team scuffled out of the gate and Turner’s struggles exacerbated the leadoff void. On June 2nd, Thompson penciled him in back at the top. As has become mythology, he raked throughout his hot month, and the Phillies finished the season with a 65-41 record. All seemed right again.
Dombrowski couldn’t have predicted just how valuable Schwarber would be to the Phillies. He couldn’t have predicted the way his first-inning at-bats have become must-watch, blink-and-you-miss television, or the way his last name has become an easy adjective for his colossal home runs. But he did know the impact that his experience and calming presence would have on this team, and that to take the next step as an organization required a tone-setter—not just in the batting order but as a clubhouse leader.
That was clear Saturday night, when he turned 50,000 people inside Chase Field into witnesses. “It’s an addicting feeling,” Schwarber said of playing in the postseason back in March of 2022. With another pennant on the line, you can bet on him chasing that feeling and teeing up more heroics in Schwarberian fashion.
