The history of baseball is littered with left handed hitters that dominate the opposition. We can go as far back as Mel Ott, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Ty Cobb, Willie McCovey and Ken Griffey, Jr, Barry Bonds and David Ortiz. The list could go on and on, but the basic idea is that there have been great left handed hitters forever.
One thing left handed hitters have struggled to do in their careers has been to hit pitchers that are also left handed. It’s one of the reasons that led to the rise
of the LOOGY in the late 1990s and into the later 2010s before the one out reliever was outlawed as some kind of stain on the game. No longer would the best left handed hitters in the game be forced to see one pitcher and one pitcher only late in games. MLB required its relief pitchers to have the ability to face more than one hitter, regulating that they must face at least three prior to their exit from the game. Still, even with relievers required to face more hitters overall, left handed hitters are still not performing well.
Which makes the season that Kyle Schwarber is having against left handed pitching all the more impressive.
The Cubs in 2020 decided that paying Schwarber what might have been around $9 million was something they weren’t interested in. The public facing message had to do with paring down payroll, necessitated by the COVID-caused loss of income, but whispers were that they were less interested paying him that money for what they believed to be an impending platoon player, someone who had lost his way of hitting in favor of trying to pull everything that he saw at the plate. While he still struggled once he arrived in Philadelphia to do damage against same sided pitching, this year has truly been something of a renaissance.
Consider: in the history of the game (or at least as much as a Stathead search can find), there are only 13 instances where a left handed hitter has faced a left handed pitcher at least 250 times and walked away with an OPS above .960. Three of those instances belong to Barry Bonds, arguably the best player to ever play the game. Two of them belong to Stan Musial. That means it’s a total of 10 players who have put up such numbers in this particular platoon split. Schwarber, with his .962 OPS in 276 plate appearances against left handed pitchers this year, has joined this group.
2025 also saw Schwarber establish himself as arguably the premier left handed hitter against left handed pitching. This season, there were only four players that had 225 plate appearances or more against left handers that had an OPS higher than .800. Schwarber’s .964 was more than 60 points higher that Shohei Ohtani (.898), 140 points higher than James Wood (.823) and almost 150 points higher than Bryce Harper (.815). At this point, there really is no one better.
It’s been a steady climb for Schwarber too. His improvement has been evident for a few years now, but seeing where he is now compared to where he used to be is impressive.
And looking at some of the videos, you can see some of the major differences in how Schwarber has hit against left handed pitching. This first one is from 2021, when he was with the Nationals. Notice how different everything looks.
Crouching down low, jumping at the ball, it doesn’t even look like the same hitter that we know now. The pitch that he swings and misses on is one that he would probably deposit into the outfield seats if he saw it today. This next video is from 2023, two years later.
You can see the change in how he’s approaching left handed hitters: more compact, more upright. This is his just getting beat on a fastball that, again, he should crush. Also – notice the pitcher.
This last pitcher is from 2025.
Same pitch, virtually the same velocity and he doesn’t miss it.
There is obviously a lot of behind the scenes work going into this season to make it happen. Schwarber’s work with Kevin Long has gotten him to this point, the culmination of years of work that has led to his transformation from a likely platoon player to the best at what he does. We should be celebrating this transformation early and often because of what it can lead to. No longer does the team have to worry about batting Schwarber and Harper back to back. Both have shown that they can hit left handed pitching rather well as opposed to being susceptible like a majority of left handed hitters are. The league average wRC+ for left handed hitters against left handed pitching was 86. Schwarber sat at 162, Harper at 125. That’s a significant advantage, especially once the playoffs begin when all of those left handed pitchers are just that much better.
It’s been literally a historic season for Schwarber. One of his perceived weaknesses is now one of the strongest strengths in the game. It’s helped the Phillies strategize in better and more advantageous ways. Quite the remarkable turnaround for Schwarber.
