The pivot point in Kyle Schwarber's baseball career arrived in December 2020 when the team that drafted him with the fourth pick six years earlier decided it no longer desired his services.

In non-tendering Schwarber, a hero of their 2016 World Series victory, the Chicago Cubs relinquished their final year of club control over the left-handed slugger. They decided they would rather Schwarber play elsewhere than award a small raise from the $7 million deal he played on through the pandemic-shortened season of 2020.

Theo Epstein, the architect of those World Series-winning Cubs, once called Schwarber a "franchise player." Now he was a part-timer for a Washington Nationals team on its way to bottoming out, playing on a one-year, $10 million prove-it contract.

He went about improving agains

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