‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Joe Maddon on Kyle Schwarber’s evolution, and a potential key to playoff success

Kyle Schwarber spent much of his first five major league seasons trying to get things right against lefties.

Joe Maddon watched the struggle up close.

Schwarber was a .198 hitter with a .658 OPS in 374 plate appearances against lefties from 2015 to 2020, and as the Cubs’ manager, Maddon was hard-pressed to keep him in the lineup. After the 2020 season, under an ownership mandate to cut payroll, Chicago let Schwarber go.

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It must have been quite a sight, then, for Maddon to watch Schwarber bat .300 against lefties in 2024 for the Phillies and set a single-season major league record with 23 left-on-left homers this year.

Schwarber became a complete hitter in four seasons with the Phillies — and put himself in position to cash in this offseason in free agency. As Schwarber’s market develops, Maddon sat down with Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast, to discuss the slugger’s maturation as a hitter.

Maddon also weighed in on how the Phillies can best protect Bryce Harper in the lineup, the value of experience in the manager’s seat, and more. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Phillies Extra podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

A: The guy’s all heart. He comes from a family of first responders. He’s got a great charity organization. I love his wife, Paige. Also haven’t met the baby yet, but there’s a lot to love about this guy. He’s real … and that’s why he fits in so well in Philadelphia.

When we had him there [in Chicago], I wanted to hit him leadoff because of all the attributes that we’re discussing right now, the fact that I thought he had a good eye at the plate, he would accept his walks, and he could put you up 1-0 before the first hitter is done right there. However, he was deficient against left-handed pitching at that time. He didn’t wait on the ball as well as he does right now. … You can see the difference in the way that Schwarbs just lets the ball get to him, as opposed to wanting to go get it, especially against the left-handed pitcher, the ability to hit the ball to left-center has really highlighted that even better. So am I surprised? No, I thought that eventually it would get to that point.

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If you’re the Cubs, at that point in his career, it’s hard to be patient. I was criticized for [hitting him] leadoff, even though I really thought it was a great idea, and you’ve seen it’s worked well, even in Philadelphia when they do that. But he really did need to learn a new approach, mentally and physically, against left-handed pitching. And he has. They’ve done a wonderful job.

The other part that was against him was his defense. He had been a catcher. When he came up, we put him in the outfield, and he was a below-average outfielder. There’s no way to describe it otherwise. But he had a good arm. He made some really great throws. And of course, he’s one of those guys, if you tell him he can’t do something, he’s going to prove you wrong, which he’s done his entire existence, from [college at] Indiana on up, and even probably when he was in high school. So these are the things he had to learn. He has learned them.

I’m so happy for him and his family that this all happened now, so that probably, I would say absolutely, a three-year heavy contract with maybe a fourth year as an option is in order right now. I’d love to see him stay in Philadelphia, because I think his sensibilities, his personality, plays with that fan base extremely well, and that’s not going to go away.

However, I know Dave Dombrowski really well. David and I scouted together in Arizona back in the ’80s. David’s a real baseball guy. He’s going to look beyond certain components of this. They know what they see, also talking to him and the impact he has in the clubhouse. I would like to believe he’s going to stay in Philadelphia, and I think he should. I don’t know that if somebody wants to give him a couple more million bucks than the Phillies do, that, I still think Schwarbs is grounded enough that he’s going to go where he wants to go, as opposed to being swayed by a couple extra dollars.

A: If you’re going to change things, you’ve got to pretty much make sure that you’re getting better, right? They are good. I like watching them. I watch them often, and I think they have grit. I think they have great camaraderie. I love their leadership. I don’t know what else you want, really. I mean to say that we’re just going to blow this up and all of a sudden we’re going to be as good next year as we were the last two or three years, and then we’re going to do better in the playoffs, that’s kind of a reach for me.

With this group, I would look to tweak it a little bit. I wouldn’t necessarily look to blow it up. There’s just too many good players on that roster, and I really think they interact well.

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The division itself, with the Mets, the Braves off a bad year are going to probably be better. But I still think Philly’s the right team, the team that has a chance to repeat again as the champs of their division again next year.

My biggest thing I would look at is, “how do we prep for playoffs? What are we doing there?” My big thing is, when you get to the playoffs, I like to do less and not more. And analytical departments like to do more and not less. That time of the year, you’ve already played all these teams. You’ve played them; you’ve seen them. And then there’s the meetings. If they become more laborious, more detailed, longer, you’re putting more stuff on guys’ plate, that would be the mistake I would consider. So I don’t know this. I’m just saying I would really look at the prep work, because what would always frustrate me, we would go through the whole year, you get to this particular juncture, and now is the time to really let your players get out there, rested body, rested mind, and free. Give them a nugget or two, but let them go play some baseball, which is why we just love the World Series.

… I had Shohei [Ohtani], I’ve had a lot of these guys — they don’t hold on to analytical nuggets when the game’s played. They don’t. That’s for managers and coaches to really decipher before a game. But then again, it has to be distilled. When you get too much information, it only serves to confuse. And again, I don’t know anything here, because I’m not privy to this, but I would look into, how are we prepping going into the playoffs? What are we laying on these guys, and how are we approaching them at that point? Because, quite frankly, they look a little bit more uptight to me in the playoffs than they do during the regular season. Like with Arizona a couple years ago [in the NLCS], I couldn’t believe that.

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So, I would really research and analyze my approach into that part of the year. Because obviously the approach during the year looks pretty darn good, and I don’t see that changing. So whatever you feel as though there was a deficiency, yes, try to add on to that. There’s got to be some micro stuff. But to blow that thing up doesn’t make any sense to me.

Watch or listen to the full interview to hear Maddon’s thoughts on protecting Harper in the lineup, his connection with Phillies manager Rob Thomson, and more.