Analysis

Why the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber might be the best free-agent slugger ever

Kyle Schwarber has hit 216 homers in his first five seasons with the Phillies. That's already the most home runs hit by any free agent in his first five seasons with any new team. Ronald Martinez / Getty Images

By Jayson StarkJune 24, 2026 6:00 am EDT Updated

Looking back on it now, five magical seasons later, even Dave Dombrowski had to laugh.

After all, on that fateful day, back in March of 2022, when he and the Phillies first signed Kyle Schwarber as a free agent, they had no idea what they’d just done — because how could they possibly have had any idea they’d just added …

· Babe Ruth! And …

· A man who would transform their franchise. Oh, and also …

· One of the best free-agent hitters ever.

“We thought he’d be a guy that could hit us 35 to 40 home runs (a year), right?” Dombrowski said of Schwarber this week, a couple of days after his favorite DH had just made history – again. “I mean, he’s had that type of power. But …”

The Phillies’ president of baseball operations let out a chuckle.

“But you don’t sign him,” Dombrowski said, “and say, ‘Oh, he’s going to hit 60 home runs.’”

Well, here we are, in the last week of June in 2026 — and it’s time to fire up the 60-homer watch, because Schwarber is on pace to make a run at that benchmark. Sound familiar? It should. We’ve seen this major motion picture before.

Schwarber has already bombarded the ballparks of North America with 29 home runs this season. As recently as last summer, he reached the all-star break with 30.

Can we assume he’ll hit one more? If he does, he’d become only the fifth hitter ever to reach 30 at the break in back-to-back years. The other four are all legendary mashers: Aaron Judge, Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa.

The difference between them and Schwarber? Only Schwarber first came to his team as a free agent. And if you keep reading, you’re going to stumble upon that concept again.

That’s because, the more I’ve thought about this and looked at this, the more convinced I am — that Kyle J. Schwarber ranks way, way up there on the list of the best free-agent sluggers ever signed by any team.

I’ve looked at them all, from every possible angle: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Shohei Ohtani, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Reggie Jackson, Vladimir Guerrero (the original), Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Rafael Palmeiro, Larry Walker, Cecil Fielder, Jim Thome, Mark Teixeira, Andre Dawson, Kirk Gibson. You can even throw Nelson Cuz and Mark Trumbo in there, plus two men from Schwarber’s ’22 free-agent class — Freddie Freeman and Corey Seager.

Pick whatever fun name you’d like. I don’t think I’ve missed anybody. Here is where Schwarber fits among them:

216 HR IN HIS FIRST FIVE SEASONS — Does that seem like a lot? You’d be smart to vote yes. That’s because it happens to be the most home runs hit by any free agent in his first five seasons with any new team.

Palmeiro bashed 214 in his first five seasons in Texas. Ortiz bopped 208 in his first five seasons with the Red Sox. Bonds smoked 198 in his first five years with the Giants.

Schwarber has charged past all of them — and still has half a season to go. If he reaches 50 homers again this season, he’ll even roar by Babe Ruth for the most home runs by any hitter in his first five seasons with any team, no matter how they got there.

TWO HOME RUN TITLES AND HEADING FOR A THIRD — Schwarber led his league in homers in his first season with the Phillies, in 2022 (with 46). He led again last year (with 56). He’s No. 1 in the National League again this season. That puts him in this company:

Won 2+ HR titles with a new team after signing as a free agent:

A-Rod, Rangers – 3
Bonds, Giants – 2
Fielder, Tigers – 2

For the record, Ohtani won one with the Dodgers and another with the Angels. Reggie led his league once with the Yankees and a second time with the Angels. Those are slightly different than this. I thought I’d answer those questions before you had time to type them.

But do Rodriguez and Bonds get PED asterisks? You decide. And Fielder was a different kind of free agent, who had just returned from Japan. So Schwarber feels like the first “normal” free agent to enter this territory.

AT LEAST 38 HOMERS FIVE SEASONS IN A ROW — All right, I’m jumping ahead of myself slightly with this one, because Schwarber obviously hasn’t reached 38 home runs yet this season. But get back to me in nine long balls, because if he does …

Only Palmeiro (in Texas) ever did that in his first five seasons after signing with a new team. And the only other free agent who did that at any point with the team that signed him was Bonds. But again, let’s ask: Do you have more PED asterisks handy? We might need them.

AVERAGED 30 HOMERS AND 700 PLATE APPEARANCES A YEAR — In his first four seasons as a Phillie, Schwarber averaged 701 plate appearances and 47 home runs a season. That’s a combination of rarified ability — and availability. Here’s how rarified it really is:

No free-agent hitter has ever done that over any four seasons with any team — except him. Even if we lower the bar to 20 homers a year, the only free-agent bat in history who has done that with any new team, over any four-season span, is him.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL — Because in Schwarber’s first five seasons as a Phillie …

· He’s collected MVP votes in every season (so far) – and finished second last season.

· He has pummeled 17 home runs of 450 feet or more (counting the postseason). The only left-handed hitter in the whole sport with more is Ohtani (19).

· He just whomped two 450-footers in the same inning last Saturday. The complete list of men to do that in the Statcast era (since 2008) consists of, well, him.

· His 216 regular-season homers are second only to Judge (222).

· Just Judge and Ohtani have scored more runs.

· Only Juan Soto and Judge have drawn more walks.

· And the Phillies are 132-53 when the Schwarbino homers. That .714 winning percentage means his team plays like a 116-win team when he makes one of those fabled trots of his.

I ran almost all of these feats — current and historic — past Dombrowski. He freely admitted he did not see this coming. In fact, back in the spring of 2022, Schwarber’s four-year, $79-million deal wasn’t even the biggest contract Dombrowski handed out to a free-agent hitter that week. (Nick Castellanos got five years, $100 million two days later.)

“When we signed Kyle Schwarber, we liked him, and we were very happy to sign him in every regard,” Dombrowski said. “And we pursued him hard. He was a guy we really wanted. But I didn’t think that we were signing a guy that was going into the Hall of Fame. And now he has a chance to do that.”

Did he just say Hall of Fame? He did. So at this point, we need to take a slight detour and acknowledge that …

THE WAR CROWD WON’T BE HAPPY WITH THIS

It’s time to let everyone know I understand the complicated, data-driven world we live in nowadays. So yeah, I’m aware there’s a metric out there known as Wins Above Replacement.

I’m not one of those WAR – what is it good for people. I appreciate that we have a metric that aspires to quantify everything that every player does on a baseball field. I use it as a measuring stick all the time. I’m grateful that it exists.

But I’m not required by the laws of baseball writing to build every historical assessment I make around a guy’s Wins Above Replacement totals. And obviously, I’m not doing that here.

In his five seasons as a Phillie, Schwarber had amassed “only” 13.2 Wins Above Replacement through Monday, according to Baseball Reference. That ranked 62nd among all hitters in the sport. So if that’s all you looked at, you’d have a hard time believing he’s been one of the most valuable anythings in this league.

And you’ll notice I haven’t made any attempt to rank the best free-agent signings in history purely by bWAR. If I did, let’s just say you’d need a periscope to find Schwarber on that list.

Here’s how that top 10 would look over a player’s first five seasons with his new team, according to Baseball Reference’s Kenny Jackelen:

Player	Team	bWAR
Barry Bonds	Giants	41.5
Rickey Henderson	Yankees	30.8
Adrian Beltre	Rangers	29.3
Carlos Beltran	Mets	27.1
Larry Walker	Rockies	26.6
Alex Rodriguez*	Rangers	25.5
Tony Phillips	Tigers	25.3
Manny Ramirez	Red Sox	25.1
David Ortiz	Red Sox	25.0
Robinson Canó	Mariners	23.9

(*A-Rod spent just three seasons with the Rangers but still made this leaderboard)

Not listed? Right. Kyle Schwarber. In fact, he still wouldn’t have enough career Wins Above Replacement to make that list if we included his entire career — with his time in Chicago, Washington and Boston added in there. (He’s only at 22.1 total bWAR, after 12 seasons.)

So if that’s where your historical perspectives start and end, you’re either laughing, screaming or pounding out a furious counterargument in the comments section right now. I know that. But now here’s my perspective:

WAR is invaluable — but that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect measure of everyone or everything.

All right, so why is WAR so hard on Schwarber? It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s getting no credit for anything he does except show up at home plate and mash.

He has worn a glove in just 17 games in the last three seasons combined. His batting average as a Phillie is only .229. He’s a two-time strikeout champ who is leading the league in K’s again. He’s rated at minus-9 Baserunning Runs Above Average over these last five seasons — even though he’s third in the sport in runs scored. WAR dings him for all of that.

Got it so far? Great. But we haven’t even gotten to the most important stuff he does that can’t be quantified.

He’s a leader, a winner and a connector of other humans — From the moment they first targeted him in 2022, the Phillies viewed Schwarber as a vital missing piece in their championship formula for all of those reasons. He had been to the postseason every year of his career but one. That hasn’t changed. And five seasons later, clubhouse life revolves around his locker — still.

“That’s why you can’t measure a player solely on numbers,” Dombrowski said. “When you start measuring the intangible aspect of it — of what he brings, the way he plays the game, the leadership aspects of it, how he can bring a team together, knowing how to win — all those things, you can’t measure in numbers. So that’s why there’s so much more.”

He supplies more voltage than Philadelphia Electric Co. — If you’re one of those people who thinks intangibles are a phony concept invented by sportswriters and general managers, I’m guessing I’ll also have a tough time selling you on voltage. But hear me out for a moment.

Go back and watch a little footage of Kyle Schwarber, launching rockets into the second deck, last Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park. Listen for the sound of the earthquake that rocked that ballpark when the Schwarbino was pounding a 457-foot homer and a 456-foot SpaceX launch in the same inning.

ANOTHER second-deck homer for Kyle Schwarber 😱 pic.twitter.com/cyd5k9q1zk

— MLB (@MLB) June 22, 2026

Then, four innings later, came more goosebumps, as he lofted home run No. 3 into those right-field seats.

HAVE A NIGHT, KYLE SCHWARBER!

His 3rd home run of the game and his 28th of the season 🔔 pic.twitter.com/C0mnOGWMZh

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) June 21, 2026

Now listen to the words of his fellow rock star, Bryce Harper, on what it means to a team to have a Babe Ruth 2.0 hanging around, who can jolt an entire stadium — and dugout — into a zen state with one wave of his bat.

“Just like anybody, I’m a fan of it,” Harper told the media onslaught after that game. “I enjoy watching him hit the baseball and the career he’s had. When he takes a swing, it changes the whole momentum of the game and the mindset of our team, and fan base and everything else.”

One quick aside here: We haven’t even discussed how rare it is for the same team to have two of the best free-agent hitters ever signed on the same team. But the Phillies can make that claim, with Harper and Schwarber hitting back-to-back. And when Harper dropped a cycle into the middle of Schwarber’s three-homer eruption Saturday, it cranked up the voltage to yet another level.

Harper is four homers away from his 200th as a Phillie. Schwarber is already there. According to our friends from STATS Perform, they would join only one other pair of hitters who came to a team as free agents, spent at least five seasons as teammates and hit at least 200 home runs apiece for that team (not necessarily in that span). Here’s the list:

Team	Player 1	Player 2
2003-08 Red Sox	David Ortiz, 483	Manny Ramirez, 274
2022-26 Phillies	Bryce Harper, 196	Kyle Schwarber, 216

(FYI, we did not include A-Rod and either Teixeira or Jason Giambi, because A-Rod first came to New York in a trade, not as a free agent.)

Ah, but we digress. This is supposed to be a column about Kyle Schwarber — a man I’ve argued (eloquently, right?) belongs on anyone’s list of the best free-agent hitters ever. My arbitrary top five, dating back to the beginning of free agency in 1976 — and requiring a player to spend at least five seasons with that team after signing — would include Bonds, Ortiz, Rickey, Reggie … and the Schwarbino (in no particular order).

With every one of them, there was more to what they brought to the dance floor than what we can quantify. They could rock any house, from April to October. And Kyle Schwarber is right there with them.

The president of the Phillies has signed only one of those men. And he understands the magic of a DH who brings along his thunder everywhere he goes.

“There’s no question about it,” Dave Dombrowski said. “It invigorates everybody — other than the opposing team. … You don’t sign players just for this reason by any means, but remember, we are in the entertainment industry. And I would pay to buy a ticket to go see Kyle Schwarber hit.”