Joe Maddon Pleased With Jason Hammel-Kyle Schwarber Battery
(CBS) One of the most notable subplots of Cubs spring training has been their evaluation of second-year pro Kyle Schwarber at catcher and how often they plan to use him there in the regular season. A couple weeks ago, general manager Jed Hoyer told 670 The Score that they were considering using Schwarber as a personal catcher for one member of the rotation, in an effort to get him comfortable working with one teammate and get more at-bats considering the outfield logjam he's also a part of.
If the Cubs do make Schwarber a personal catcher, it appears the pairing will be with right-hander Jason Hammel, whom he's worked with often this spring. Manager Joe Maddon praised the progress the two have made together, including in a win Tuesday in which Hammel allowed one run on three hits in five innings with Schwarber behind the plate.
"Really nice job," Maddon said. "Watching them interact during the course of the game and between innings and postgame, once we took Jason out, there's definitely a connection going on there ... That connection between the two is obvious.
"I'm leaning toward that. That's what I've talked about. I never like to commit too far in advance, but we've kind of played it out this whole camp. You don't even know the pitching matchups that are going to be against us, although I'm not afraid to go defense over offense in different situations. But I can see it happening. I don't know how often it's going to happen -- maybe it's going to happen all the time. We all like what we saw (Tuesday)."
Of course, Schwarber will still primarily be a left fielder.
"He's going to play a lot of left field," Hoyer said on March 9. "The question is do we want to do that catching one to start the season?
"He can get better at blocking. He can get better at receiving. He can get better at throwing. I don't think any of those things in particular are things that are limiting factors for him catching. He just has to keep getting better at all that. Being a good catcher's really hard."
