Schwarber a powerful option in leadoff spot

Dexter Fowler’s gone, and he’s not coming back to Wrigley Field — well, except when the Cardinals play there.

While the Cubs are a team that seemingly has everything, do they have a leadoff hitter to take Fowler’s place?

That’s one of the few questions remaining now that they’ve traded for Wade Davis to fill the hole that Aroldis Chapman left behind.

It’s a big question, however, as the Cubs were 80-38 with Fowler as the leadoff man last season and 23-20 with anyone else there. He delivered an .842 OPS, which ranked eighth best in the Major Leagues among 33 players with at least 300 plate appearances as the leadoff man.

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But the Cubs should be OK without him. After all, they have a guy who could be the most productive No. 1 hitter in baseball next season.

He’s got a career on-base percentage of .353 — and a .451 OBP in 14 postseason games. He’s not as fast as Fowler, so he won’t be viewed as the same kind of threat as Fowler when he gets on base. But when they played together in 2015, he was judged to be one of the team’s best baserunners — even better than Fowler — by Bill James’ metrics.

We’re talking about Kyle Schwarber, the heavyweight left fielder, and we’re not the only ones.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon mentioned Schwarber as a possibility to lead off when he met with reporters at the Winter Meetings last week.

“Schwarber is not a bad name,” Maddon said. “Kyle is not a bad name at all. … Actually, a couple years ago, I considered leading Kyle off and putting Dexter second. But all our nerds did all the work and they really liked Fowler one and liked Schwarber two, just based on the data, so I went with that and it worked out well. Now, all of the sudden, Dexter is not there anymore. It’s not impossible to consider Kyle in that spot.”

Maddon isn’t kidding, even if lots of fans roll their eyes at the thought of the 6-foot, 235-pound Schwarber filling Fowler’s shoes. He’s on to something.

After a lot of thought and a little bit of study, I’m convinced Schwarber can succeed as a leadoff hitter — assuming his left knee recovers completely from the ugly injury that sidelined him until the …

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