The Cubs’ Japanese DH/right fielder is featured in this installment of the series.
Seiya Suzuki came to the Cubs from the Hiroshima Toyo Carp as a free agent, arriving for the 2022 season. The 30-year-old was heralded as a Gold Glove-quality fielder with power and patience at the plate, another five-tool guy with some wheels to take extra bases and a cannon for an arm.
He’s been pretty damn good, on balance, at the dish, and his arm is just fine. He’s not Andre Dawson or Roberto Clemente but you don’t want to take too big of a turn as he has a quick release and sizes up situations rapidly.
He does have occasional issues catching fly balls. This has relegated him to fourth outfielder the last year or so, with first Cody Bellinger and now Kyle Tucker, both of whom are excellent right fielders, supplanting him.
That bat, though, it’s no illusion. A good case could be made for Suzuki hitting in the two-hole and Nico Hoerner moving down to seventh or eighth in the order, where he and PCA could create some bottom-of-the-order havoc, and I would be into that. It might happen, and our batting order in the final will be adjusted to reflect that, and many mea culpas will be tendered. But we have reasons for what we do…
Here. though, and for now, I have him in the cleanup spot, where he can drive in a ton of runs batting between Tucker and Busch, with Ian Happ and Hoerner the beneficiaries of this munificence.
Suzuki has been good for 8.2 bWAR (8.7 fWAR), and has gotten a lot of dings for the lack of defense. His career OPS+ of 128 tells a better story, and we fans have seen him come up and deliver big hits on quite a few occasions.
He’s missed some games every season. 105, 135, 131, the record says. Odds are that this will continue, and the sub DH will log a few ABs. His lifetime batting line is .278/.354/.470, with the SLG trending upward, and a season-long .500 SLG isn’t out of the question, especially in these circumstances.
Suzuki is arguably one of the two best hitters in the lineup. His power numbers, as noted, are trending up, and he tends to close big, so if he gets off to a fast start, he could turn in a 30-homer season. He has the kind of power that he could hit 40 in a full slate of games, but that’s a tall order as it’s twice what he’s done in his best year (21 in 2024).
Assuming for a moment that Michael Busch is the real deal, that’s a pretty imposing top 5, with speed, power, patience. If you move Hoerner down, and plant Suzuki in the two-spot, that probably puts Dansby Swanson in the five-spot, at least until Matt Shaw finds his legs, and I’m not entirely comfortable with that. We’ll discuss the lineup further as we continue the series.
Thanks for reading, and by all means, discuss among yourselves.