NEWSLETTER
Over his last 50 plate appearances, Ian Happ is slashing .333/.440/.571 (175 wRC+). Over his last seven starts, Mike Tauchman has reached base 12 times (.429 OBP). Since the beginning of August, Cody Bellinger has 12 doubles, 11 homers, 8 stolen bases, and 49(!) RBI despite just a 15.3% strikeout rate. And yet all of that pales in comparison to the absolutely TORRID stretch of baseball the Cubs are getting out of right fielder Seiya Suzuki right now.
Suzuki wrapped up the final series at Wrigley Field with six hits, including a double, a homer, five runs scored, and 3 RBI. And dating back to the beginning of August, he’s one of the top-3 hottest hitters in all of Major League Baseball. Yes. It’s been that good (186 wRC+) for that long (184 PAs): .349/.402/.687.
Seiya Suzuki Ranks Since Aug. 1
To put that another way, since the beginning of August, Suzuki has basically been in an offensive tier shared only by Mookie Betts, Julio Rodriguez, Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, and Bryce Harper. It’s incredible. And it’s one of the primary reasons the Cubs have stayed afloat despite waning offensive contributions from guys like Jeimer Candelario, Dansby Swanson, Bellinger, etc.
And for the season as a whole, you can round his numbers to a wonderful .283/.354/.485, good for a 125 wRC+ with 20 homers, 73 runs scored, and 70 RBI. It took a while for him to get going/settle in this season, but boy is he finishing STRONG.
And in case you were worried about smoke and mirrors, the peripherals look fantastic, too.
For the season as a whole, Suzuki is one of just 31 qualified hitters with a hard-hit rate over 48% and one of only 29 with an average exit velocity over 91.5 MPH — league averages there are 39.3% and 89 MPH.
In terms of plate discipline, only five batters are swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone than Suzuki (18.8%). Meanwhile, compared to himself last season, Suzuki has swung at more pitches in the zone (60% vs 54.9%), has hit more line drives (22% vs 20%), and has reduced his soft contact dramatically (14.1% vs 17.9%).
And according to Statcast, there’s been exactly no extra luck baked into his results: His .356 expected wOBA lines up precisely with his .356 actual wOBA. That’s what happens when you consistently smoke the ball and pair it with an elite feel for the zone.
So whatever issues plagued him earlier this season (a little too passive? a little bad luck? umpires out to get specifically him?) are gone. He’s fully locked in at the plate and has been the exact sort of elite hitter we all hoped he would be coming into the season.
And that’s very good news for a Cubs team on the upswing at a macro-level. Suzuki, 29, still has three years under contract with the Cubs following this season and figures to be one of their most important middle-of-the-order bats as they enter this next, more competitive phase of the organizational cycle. If he’s going to produce at anywhere near this level of production, you suddenly feel even better about the near-term outlook of a team that will lose Cody Bellinger at the end of the year and still has no long-term answer at first or third base.
If you’re more of a nervous nelly, the caution here would be that we’ve seen red-hot stretches out of Suzuki before. He does tend to be a streaky hitter. But so many of those prior streaks came with more troubling caveats (for example, he probably owes that insane start to his MLB career to the fact that nobody really knew him that well at the time. But now? The book is out on Suzuki, and they still have no answer for him. He’s healthy. He’s made adjustments. The peripherals look good. And he passes the eye test.
If the Cubs do wind up hanging onto one of these three Wild Card spots this season, they’re going to owe a LOT of the credit to their right fielder.
