2022 season wrap: Former Cubs Javier Báez, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber

The 2022 regular season is over, so let’s look at these former Cubs and what they did since the most recent update in this series. Two of these players, of course, are in the postseason.

Javier Báez

Javy went just 5-for-24 (.208) over the season’s final week, but two of those five hits were home runs.

Overall, Báez had the worst full season of his career, batting .238/.278/.393 with 27 doubles, four triples, 17 home runs and nine stolen bases. All of that was worth 2.6 bWAR — which was the best of all Tigers players. He also led Detroit in games, PA, hits, runs, doubles, home runs and RBI. Which sounds okay, I guess, but the Tigers were a bad 96-loss team that’s a long way from contention. It would not surprise me if they try to trade Javy this offseason.

Here, amuse yourself for seven minutes:

Kris Bryant

As noted in the last update, Bryant did not play after July 31 due to plantar fasciitis.

Rockies fans are not happy:

Bryant did hit well when he played: .306/.376/.475 (49-for-160) with five home runs, but none of those home runs was hit at Coors Field.

If Bryant is healthy in 2023, perhaps he’ll play up to his contract. It should be noted that the last time he played 150 games was in 2018. He’ll turn 30 in December.

Anthony Rizzo

Over his last six regular-season games, Rizzo hit .182/.308/.182 (4-for-22) with one walk and three times hit by a pitch. Rizzo was HBP 23 times in 2022, which, strangely enough, didn’t lead the American League. Andres Gimenez of the Guardians led with 25. Rizzo is the active MLB career leader with 201 HBP, which ranks ninth all-time.

He matched his career high with 32 home runs, but his .817 OPS was his lowest since 2013.

Rizzo can opt out of his $16 million Yankee deal for 2023, but I doubt he’ll do that. After 2023, though, it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll continue. I wonder if next year will be it for him.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone let Rizzo be “acting manager” for their series finale in Toronto last week. The Yankees won 5-2:

He’ll begin division series play tomorrow at Yankee Stadium against the Guardians.

Kyle Schwarber

Schwarber’s team was trying to nail down a wild-card spot, which they eventually did, so he played more than Rizzo or Báez in this time frame. Since the last update in this series, Schwarber hit .310/.474/.828 (9-for-29) with four home runs in nine games.

He wound up leading the National League with 46 home runs. He became just the second player in MLB history to hit that many home runs and not have 100 RBI (he had 94). The other is another former Cub, Alfonso Soriano, who had 46 home runs and 95 RBI in 2006 with the Nationals.

As is often the case with Schwarber, one of those home runs over the last week of the season went a long, long way. Number 43 [VIDEO].

One more note on those homers:

Schwarber went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts vs. the Cardinals in the Wild Card Series over the weekend, but the Phillies won the series and will begin division series play against the Braves in Atlanta tomorrow.