Seiya Suzuki Is Exhibiting Indicators of Progress

Between Cody Bellinger’s perplexing season, Dansby Swanson’s continued excellence, and Christopher Morel’s energy surge, there are plenty of fascinating issues taking place with the Cubs. But I need to give attention to their cleanup hitter and proper fielder, Seiya Suzuki. In his introduction to the majors, he posted a 116 wRC+ in 446 plate appearances, however numerous hand, ankle, and finger accidents all year long stored him from getting in a protracted rhythm; a 158 wRC+ within the first month and a 139 wRC+ within the last month sandwiched a 98 wRC+ from May via August. We received a number of glimpses of what peak Suzuki might appear like; well being was the important thing to that turning into a constant show.

Unfortunately for him, he suffered an indirect damage throughout spring coaching that compelled him to withdraw from the World Baseball Classic and slowed down the beginning of his season. Early-season indirect accidents are extremely irritating; as you’re ramping up actions, the very last thing you need is to harm part of your physique that compromises your rotational energy. He returned to motion on April 14, however he wasn’t the perfect model of himself. His groundball charge that month was 49.1%, more than likely as a consequence of a very flat swing path. His 30-degree Vertical Bat Angle (VBA) — the angle of the barrel at affect — was flatter than any of his greatest months in 2022 by at the very least a full diploma and not using a corresponding enhance in pitch top, making it very robust for any individual of his measurement and mechanics to cowl breaking balls and offspeed pitches persistently with out vital physique angle changes to compensate for his excessive arms preset and flat path. The blueprint for fulfillment from the earlier season didn’t appear like this.

Given that Suzuki didn’t barrel a single non-fastball in April, it’s secure to say an adjustment wanted to be made. Here are a number of of his onerous hits on breaking balls that month that he didn’t get excessive sufficient off the bottom to be thought-about barrels:

Each of those had been hit over 100 mph, and two of them resulted in hits, however should you’re persistently hitting a ball at this launch angle, your offensive ceiling will likely be low. You’d anticipate Suzuki to have the ability to get some carry underneath pitches smack within the center third of the strike zone and get them into the hole, however he hit simply .250 on breakers throughout his two weeks in April with an xwOBA of .268.

As Suzuki received extra comfy on the plate post-oblique damage, he wanted to give attention to getting his mechanics to some extent the place he might convert these onerous grounders into line drives. That he did, which is smart; it’s possible that the indirect damage restricted him from reaching the extent of lateral torso bend wanted to raise these pitches. Here are a number of breaking balls in the midst of the zone throughout May the place he received his barrel underneath his arms and the ball:

Not the whole lot must be a light-weight tower homer, just like the swing towards J.P. France, however every of those swings is a superb instance of what a great energy hitter ought to do to breaking balls in the midst of the strike zone. Unlike the swings when he returned from damage, Suzuki received these within the air to a various diploma: one was good for a line drive single, one other was a deep flyout, and one was a moonshot dwelling run. As a hitter, you’re a lot happier when your onerous outs are deep fly balls versus one-hoppers to infielders. That’s a extra sound course of that can finally end in gappers.

In May, Suzuki elevated his VBA from 30 to 32.3 levels. Interestingly sufficient, the typical top of pitches he made contact with in April was 2.33 toes, however in May that elevated to 2.40. With all else even, that ought to end in a slight downtick in VBA, however Suzuki’s slight barrel adjustment put him in a greater spot to carry the ball. Changes like these are how a hitter can go from a goose egg Barrel% in a single month to 14.8% the subsequent.

Hitting breaking balls onerous is one thing Suzuki wants to have the ability to do. Last season, most of his manufacturing got here from hitting fastballs: 9 of his 15 dwelling runs got here on heaters, and he held a .361 xwOBA towards them. Breaking balls, however, had been a legit downside, and an unsurprising one for a participant going through MLB pitching for the primary time. But in his sophomore season, Suzuki has taken strides towards higher manufacturing on breakers:

As you possibly can see, Suzuki has decreased his Whiff% by 10 share factors and stored the identical chase charge. He has been extra aggressive with attacking breaking balls within the coronary heart of the zone however stored his shadow swing charge comparatively the identical. This isn’t within the desk, however when he has swung at breakers within the shadow zone, his wOBA has jumped from .209 final yr to .346 to date this season. And whereas his wOBA within the coronary heart of the zone has dipped a bit of bit, he has made up for it with higher efficiency across the edges. If you need to be a great huge league hitter, you want to be at the very least competent towards breaking balls. If he can proceed to maintain this enchancment from final season, we may very well be in retailer for a extra everlasting breakout that holds over a bigger pattern measurement.

I ought to notice that for the reason that calendar has flipped to June, Suzuki has been in a rut on the plate, going 1-for-23 with 11 strikeouts and chasing too many changeups out of the zone. With a 94th-percentile general chase charge, I’m comfy saying I don’t anticipate this to proceed; this isn’t one thing that has been an enormous difficulty for him within the first 645 plate appearances of his profession, and it will be shocking to see that pattern proceed. With stable proper subject protection — per Statcast, his bounce ranking has gone from the tenth percentile final yr to the 98th in ’23 to pair with above-average velocity (28.3 ft/s) — and a great energy/plate self-discipline mixture, Suzuki is usually a very priceless participant for the Cubs each this season and going ahead as they attempt to solidify their place within the NL Central as a legit contender.