Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber is ready to play in the 2022 World Series.
The Fall Classic starts tonight and will feature two extremely solid teams: the Phillies and the Houston Astros.
The former are 9-2 in the postseason, while the latter are undefeated at 7-0.
Bryce Harper is Philadelphia’s best player and hitter, and it isn’t particularly close, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t gotten help from his teammates.
Schwarber led the National League in home runs this season with 46.
His slash line was impressive, at .218/.323/.504, despite a low batting average.
Schwarber was able to finish with a 128 wRC+, which means he performed 28 percent better than the league average hitter.
He achieved all this despite getting some rough treatment from umpires all year long.
“Imagine Kyle Schwarber with an automated strike zone,” Codify Baseball tweeted while showing a clip of some badly missed calls by umpires.
Imagine Kyle Schwarber with an automated strike zone. pic.twitter.com/YPyoD2CeAs
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) October 28, 2022
Schwarber Was Affected By Some Ugly Missed Calls
His excellent ability to discern balls and strikes was often wasted when home plate umpires called clear balls as strikes, mostly in the outer part of the zone.
It wasn’t just his outburst after being struck out by Josh Hader in the regular season: the issue was frequent, and it affected his final stats.
If MLB implements the automated zone, Schwarber is shaping up to be one of the players who will benefit the most from it.
With a fair zone, the slugger could work better counts and see better pitches in the zone to drive, taking advantage of his immense power.
For now, though, he will need to keep dealing with umpires and the human mistake.
The Phillies hope it’s not a problem.
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