Cubs Outfielder Kyle Schwarber Optioned To AAA Iowa

Front Office wants to give the struggling outfielder a chance to clear his head and reboot his season

Kyle Schwarber on June 14th against the Mets(Arturo Pardavilla III via Flickr)

The Chicago Cubs have decided to send Kyle Schwarber to AAA Iowa to “clear his head.” The Left Fielder‘s slash line so far this year sits at a meager .171/.295/.378. His homerun total of 12 through 64 games speaks to the fact this his power is there. But he’s only managed 26 hits other than that in 222 at bats. A -0.6 WAR and a -6 Runs Above Replacement Level shows the struggles plainly.

Theo Epstein said last month that they still have faith in Schwarber.

“If anyone wants to sell their Kyle Schwarber stock, we’re buying,” Epstein said. “If they want to sell low, we’ll buy low. He’s going to have tremendous production at the end of the year. He’s going to have a lot of big hits to help us win games. It just means there’s a lot of hits out there for the rest of the year.”

This move probably needed to take place weeks ago truthfully. It’s hard to say how much of his struggles are due to his injury and coming back from that. The other factor that could have contributed to his offensive funk is Maddon batting him in the leadoff spot. That flopped miserably.

Patrick Mooney of CSN is reporting via Twitter that according to sources the plan is to option Kyle Schwarber to Iowa, place Jason Heyward on the 10 day DL, and add Dylan Florio and Mark Zagunis to the major league roster.

The Cubs offense as a whole has struggled this year and Schwarber’s spot atop the lineup perhaps magnified his struggles even more.

Given what he has dealt with physically and emotionally over the past 12 months it’s understandable that there would be some hangover.

Doug Preszler is the type of person who can be a Cubs fan and an Iowa Hawkeyes fan while living in South Dakota. He is a man who cares not for regional loyalty. He can be found on Twitter @PreszlerDoug, telling tales of the Dakotan Cubs fan’s existence.