The Seiya Suzuki BABIP Polka

Seiya Suzuki has been within the information as a commerce candidate all offseason — partially as a result of the Cubs can’t cease delivery outfielders out and in — and on the Winter Conferences, his agent, Joel Wolfe, sprinkled some enlightening particulars into an enormous throng of onlooking reporters. Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and Wolfe have had conversations in regards to the 30-year-old outfielder’s future. The Cubs aren’t determined to commerce a participant who hit .283/.366/.482 in 2024, however Suzuki apparently isn’t significantly eager on being a full-time DH, which is probably the most pure touchdown spot for him after the Cubs traded for Kyle Tucker.

If the Cubs have been to commerce Suzuki, they’d need to have a reasonably good concept of how precious he’s. In truth, they must have a agency perception in Suzuki’s worth, and a good suggestion of the rosiest attainable image they might promote to a possible commerce accomplice, in addition to the distinction between these two numbers.

I’m unsure of Suzuki’s worth myself, to be sincere. When doubtful, examine WAR, I suppose; Suzuki was value 3.2 WAR in 2023 and three.6 in 2024. And that’s regardless of a discount in defensive worth.

The gross sales pitch for Suzuki would in all probability embrace the road that he’s coming off his greatest offensive season. In 2024, he had a wRC+ of 138, which was Sixteenth amongst certified hitters. In 2023, his wRC+ was 128, which is a noticeable distinction. In 2024, Anthony Santander had a wRC+ of 129, whereas Freddie Freeman had a 137, simply to offer you an concept of what sort of hole we’re speaking about.

In actuality, Suzuki’s 2024 numbers have been frighteningly just like these he put up in 2023:

The most important change in Suzuki’s batting profile was in his strikeout charge, which received worse as his league-adjusted numbers received higher. And as you would possibly anticipate, the league as a complete was worse at hitting in 2024 than in 2023 — a .310 wOBA, down from .318 the yr earlier than.

And offense isn’t the entire image, or at the very least it wouldn’t be if Suzuki received his method. Suzuki believes, in line with Wolfe, that he’s a superb defender, and that transferring to DH is “not a praise.” However the numbers say completely different. Throughout the previous two seasons, he’s 82nd in fielding run worth out of 108 outfielders with at the very least 1,000 defensive innings. Perhaps he needs to be extra open-minded about DHing.

Regardless, protection isn’t the factor that determines whether or not nook outfielders receives a commission or not, except they’re Jason Heyward on one hand, or MJ Melendez on the opposite. In Suzuki’s case, we’re speaking a couple of couple runs a yr in defensive worth. That is all in regards to the bat.

Suzuki’s been on my thoughts not too long ago not simply due to the commerce rumors typically, however as a result of after the Phillies’ humiliating first-round exit — punctuated by quite a few swinging strikeouts from the staff’s highly-paid core — Suzuki has come down with a situation I wish to name Kevin Kolb Syndrome. After a nasty loss, Philadelphia followers generally tend to need change for change’s sake. (On this respect, I think about they’re not alone, however these are my individuals, so I do know their idiosyncrasies intimately — be happy to generalize to your personal group should you see something acquainted.)

Within the latter days of Donovan McNabb’s time with the Eagles, Kevin Kolb was the vacant-eyed second-rounder being groomed because the inheritor presumptive to the perfect quarterback in franchise historical past. McNabb had an annoying behavior of main the Eagles to a degree simply wanting a championship, and was subsequently continually topic to requires his alternative. Kolb was standard, for a time, amongst followers who knew nothing about him aside from his identify and the truth that he hunted boars with a knife for enjoyable. (Some of the true-to-life prospers in Silver Linings Playbook was Jacki Weaver’s character sporting a Kolb jersey.) Whenever you’re sick of trying on the beginning quarterback’s silly face, any backup will do.

Evaluating Suzuki to Kolb is just a little uncharitable to each Suzuki and the Phillies followers who’ve come to view him as a possible savior. The overall takeaway from the NLDS is that the Phillies chased their method out of the collection. Certainly, it is a staff constructed largely out of aggressive hitters — Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, Nick Castellanos — so it’s not unreasonable to need a extra selective hitter in the course of the lineup. (Though Harper, Castellanos, and to some extent Turner all had a superb collection.)

Suzuki is sort of selective; amongst certified hitters in 2024, he had one of many 10 lowest chase charges and one of many 5 lowest total swing charges. He nonetheless struck out a ton — 27.4%, Sixteenth-highest within the league — however his strikeouts take longer than three pitches. Wanting Suzuki is perhaps a case Kevin Kolb Syndrome, however it has sound logical underpinnings.

In some respects, Suzuki’s selectivity is just like one other former Cubs nook outfielder, Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber’s stroll charge dwarfs Suzuki’s, however in 2024 the 2 ended up with equivalent OBPs of .366, so I assume there’s a couple of technique to get on base.

Aside from Schwarber’s elite strike zone judgment, his standout ability is huge uncooked energy. That’s one thing Suzuki lacks; he’s averaged 23 residence runs per 162 video games over his main league profession. His profession excessive in ISO is a good .200.

However one column over from remoted energy on our stat dashboard is a quantity that, I consider, is the entire proverbial ballgame for this participant: BABIP.

This previous season, Suzuki’s BABIP was .370. That wasn’t simply the best BABIP of any certified hitter within the league, it will’ve at the very least tied for the league lead in 2022 and 2023 as effectively. And Suzuki isn’t some lefty groundball machine with 80-grade pace. He’s a right-handed nook outfielder who often hits in the course of the order and places balls within the air.

The place is that this BABIP coming from?

Effectively, it does assist that Suzuki, for causes I don’t intuitively perceive, does beat out a variety of groundballs. He has 45 infield hits in his profession, and his infield hit charge of 9.2% — the bottom of his profession — was tied with Anthony Volpe for twenty fifth within the league.

However pace and grounders, it seems, aren’t the important thing to posting a excessive BABIP. When you have a look at the 20 highest BABIP seasons over the previous 4 years, you’ll discover a couple quick man outlier campaigns, but in addition MVP efforts by Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, and Aaron Choose. Plus 30-homer seasons by Austin Riley, Brent Rooker, Tyler O’Neill, and Marcell Ozuna.

Effectively, Suzuki hits the ball arduous. His exit velocity topped out at over 115 mph this season, which was within the high 4% of the league. However one or two supersonic line drives don’t a famous person make:

Suzuki isn’t among the many league leaders in exit velocity, regardless of the place you set the marker. However we’ve been spoiled just a little bit by Choose and his ilk. Suzuki isn’t a 6-foot-6, 270-pound circus act. He’s listed at 5-foot-11, 182 kilos. You recognize, like an accountant or a automobile mechanic. After which take into account that putting between thirtieth and fiftieth on an exit velocity leaderboard, out of 400-plus gamers, is fairly good. If arduous hitters have been distributed evenly throughout the league, there would solely be one different man on Suzuki’s staff able to hitting the ball like he can.

So I’m keen to offer Suzuki a go into the Earns His BABIP By means of Arduous Contact Membership. Particularly contemplating that his BABIP throughout his first two seasons within the U.S. was .335. Having investigated Suzuki’s high quality of contact and BABIP, I’m largely curious now about how he’s beating out all these grounders. Sadly, I didn’t have time to conduct an in depth investigation into that matter, as a result of I spent all afternoon yesterday making this:

You’ll discover I coloured in among the cells on Suzuki’s aspect of the desk. For the part on batting common and slugging share, cells in blue are areas by which Suzuki underperformed the league common by 50 factors or extra. Yellow cells are these by which he outperformed the league common by lower than 50 factors. Orange cells are these by which he outperformed the league by between 50 and 150 factors, and crimson cells are these the place he outperformed the league by greater than 150 factors.

A lot of the cells are both orange or crimson. And I don’t assume that’s a fluke. As you may see, I’ve sorted all these batted balls by route (pull, middle, reverse) and elevation (grounder, line drive, fly ball). And in contrast to your normal BABIP determine, the numbers on this desk embrace residence runs however exclude bunts, so bear that in thoughts.

Anyway, should you take the assorted classes for route and elevation, plus the full numbers for all batted balls put collectively, you get 16 buckets. Suzuki has an above-average hard-hit charge in 15 of these 16 buckets, in some instances by greater than 10 factors. The class by which Suzuki doesn’t hit the ball as arduous as the common batter is opposite-field grounders, and he hit .583 on these.

Suzuki isn’t an ideal hitter. As a lot as he makes arduous contact and places the ball within the air — which is what you need to do — he doesn’t pull fly balls as a lot as you’d like. That in all probability has one thing to do with why all that onerous contact solely leads to 20-homer energy. However should you’re searching for a path to a .370 BABIP, spraying hard-hit balls in every single place is an efficient place to start out. Would he utterly revolutionize a contending staff’s lineup? Maybe not. But it surely’s straightforward to see why followers of a staff in want of a spark would latch onto him.