Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)
Hell, if Schwarber is hitting better (longer term), maybe you put him there anyway. You want the best chance to win.
The issue is that Schwarber has a less than ideal body type for a corner outfielder. Normally you can stash guys in left, but Schwarber has a couple of knocks on him -- he's listed at 235, which is being
incredibly generous (he's closer to 255); he has a cooked macaroni noodle of an arm (same reason he wouldn't be able to play third) and he's slow as hell. I saw him for a half-dozen games at Iowa this year and he's just totally wrong for the position -- he can't jump from the stance to throw to second quickly because of his bulk, and he has no sense for framing or foot placement. For heaven's sake, the most positive thing any scouting reports said about him in May and June was basically, "Well ... uh ... he's gone a week between passed balls."
That's not a death sentence for him, because he can always lose weight and build arm strength, but realistically his only landing spot on an NL team is at 1B, and Rizzo's got that locked up for the next decade-plus.
If we're being realistic, at least one of Schwarber and Vogelbach is on another team's 40-man roster by the winter meetings. The Cubs desperately need pitching help on all fronts (Epstein's inability to build a bullpen dates back to his Boston days, so this will be an interesting process) and they have no help coming up anytime soon from the minors, considering CJ Edwards is their best prospect and he's already had severe shoulder injuries, and since they have far more bats than they can actually use -- between Schwarber, Vogelbach, Almora, Torres and arguably McKinney, they just have an absolute glut -- that means some of those guys are expendable.
