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 transport outfielders out and in — and on the Winter Conferences, his agent, Joel Wolfe, sprinkled some enlightening particulars into a large 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 had been to commerce Suzuki, they’d should have a reasonably good concept of how useful he’s. Actually, they must have a agency perception in Suzuki’s worth, and a good suggestion of the rosiest attainable image they may promote to a possible commerce companion, in addition to the distinction between these two numbers.

I’m unsure of Suzuki’s worth myself, to be sincere. When unsure, test 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 most likely embody 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 present you an concept of what sort of hole we’re speaking about.

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

The largest change in Suzuki’s batting profile was in his strikeout fee, which bought worse as his league-adjusted numbers bought higher. And as you would possibly anticipate, the league as an entire was worse at hitting in 2024 than in 2023 — a .310 wOBA, down from .318 the 12 months earlier than.

And offense isn’t the entire image, or at the least it wouldn’t be if Suzuki bought his means. Suzuki believes, in line with Wolfe, that he’s defender, and that shifting 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 least 1,000 defensive innings. Possibly he must 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 few couple runs a 12 months 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 workforce’s highly-paid core — Suzuki has come down with a situation I prefer to name Kevin Kolb Syndrome. After a foul loss, Philadelphia followers 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 at liberty to generalize to your personal neighborhood 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 very best quarterback in franchise historical past. McNabb had an annoying behavior of main the Eagles to a degree simply wanting a championship, and was subsequently continuously topic to requires his substitute. Kolb was widespread, 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 somewhat 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 means out of the collection. Certainly, this can be a workforce 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. (Although Harper, Castellanos, and to some extent Turner all had collection.)

Suzuki is kind of selective; amongst certified hitters in 2024, he had one of many 10 lowest chase charges and one of many 5 lowest general 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 likely to be a case Kevin Kolb Syndrome, but it surely has sound logical underpinnings.

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

Other than Schwarber’s elite strike zone judgment, his standout talent 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 an excellent .200.

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

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

The place is that this BABIP coming from?

Properly, it does assist that Suzuki, for causes I don’t intuitively perceive, does beat out quite a lot of groundballs. He has 45 infield hits in his profession, and his infield hit fee 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. In case 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 additionally MVP efforts by Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, and Aaron Choose. Plus 30-homer seasons by Austin Riley, Brent Rooker, Tyler O’Neill, and Marcell Ozuna.

Properly, Suzuki hits the ball onerous. His exit velocity topped out at over 115 mph this season, which was within the prime 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, irrespective of the place you set the marker. However we’ve been spoiled somewhat 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 automotive mechanic. After which take into account that inserting between thirtieth and fiftieth on an exit velocity leaderboard, out of 400-plus gamers, is fairly good. If onerous hitters had been distributed evenly throughout the league, there would solely be one different man on Suzuki’s workforce able to hitting the ball like he can.

So I’m keen to present Suzuki a cross into the Earns His BABIP By way 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 a few of the cells on Suzuki’s aspect of the desk. For the part on batting common and slugging proportion, cells in blue are areas wherein Suzuki underperformed the league common by 50 factors or extra. Yellow cells are these wherein he outperformed the league common by lower than 50 factors. Orange cells are these wherein 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 suppose that’s a fluke. As you possibly can 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 embody residence runs however exclude bunts, so bear that in thoughts.

Anyway, should you take the varied classes for route and elevation, plus the overall numbers for all batted balls put collectively, you get 16 buckets. Suzuki has an above-average hard-hit fee in 15 of these 16 buckets, in some circumstances by greater than 10 factors. The class wherein Suzuki doesn’t hit the ball as onerous as the typical batter is opposite-field grounders, and he hit .583 on these.

Suzuki isn’t an ideal hitter. As a lot as he makes onerous 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 most likely has one thing to do with why all that onerous contact solely ends in 20-homer energy. However should you’re in search of a path to a .370 BABIP, spraying hard-hit balls everywhere is an efficient place to start out. Would he fully revolutionize a contending workforce’s lineup? Maybe not. Nevertheless it’s straightforward to see why followers of a workforce in want of a spark would latch onto him.