Kyle Schwarber's Philadelphia Phillies tenure has absolutely obliterated all expectations. The veteran slugger entered the first season of his four-year, $79 million deal in 2022 with 153 home runs over his first seven major league seasons.
The slugger has surpassed that total in the final year of his contract with 180 homers and counting with the Phillies. Schwarber is experiencing a career-best campaign and is knocking on the doorstep of some exclusive Phillies company after his record-setting four-homer night.
Kyle Schwarber will join Ryan Howard as the only Phillies with 50-home run seasons
When Schwarber stepped into the box in the seventh inning on Thursday, everybody following the game had a feeling he would come through with his fourth home run of the night, because that's all he's done this season. His four longballs raised his season total to an NL-leading 49, and his next will group him with Ryan Howard as just the second Phillie ever to hit at least 50 homers in one season.
The "Big Piece" surpassed the 50-homer mark in his otherworldly 2006 season, when he launched a franchise-record 58 and took home NL MVP honors. His second full season in the majors was unforgettably one of the greatest ever, with 149 RBIs to go along with a .313 average and 1.084 OPS. He'd go on to hit between 45 and 48 bombs the next three seasons before his career began to succumb to injuries. Currently, Schwarber is on pace to surpass Howard's 2006 total with 59 home runs after Thursday's explosion.
Schwarber is hitting home run totals that even Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Jim Thome couldn't reach. Thome hit 47 in 2003, while Schmidt's highest watermark came when he slugged 48 in a memorable 1980 season in which he won both a regular season and World Series MVP award. Though Schwarber has already passed Schmidt's single-season total, his record 548 homers with the franchise is still insurmountable.
It would be amazing to see Schwarber break Howard's franchise record for home runs in a season. He's already tied a Phillies record with the most postseason homers in team history, and will hopefully break that this October. He could set more records and easily retire as one of the franchise's all-time greats if he's re-signs this winter.
To say that Schwarber is beloved in Philadelphia would be an understatement. He's always been praised as a phenomenal clubhouse leader that any team would kill to have. He's having a contract year for the ages, and it certainly won't be easy to retain his services. The Phillies' front office knows how important he is to the team and its city, and how they cannot afford to lose this record-setting production in free agency.