Eleventh in the series. Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 veteran right fielder.<\/p>\n
31-year-old Seiya Suzuki<\/a> is a native of Arakawa, Japan, who came to the Cubs in 2022, with a reputation for good OF defense and a lively bat, after a storied career in NPB, where he played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.<\/p>\n In his four years as a Chicago Cub, he has proven that he has significant power. In 2025, his best season so far, he turned in a slash of .245\/.326\/.478, which is quite good, but the campaign could have been better. The whole team offense cratered when Kyle Tucker tried to play through his injuries, and Suzuki was one of the most affected. The season ended up being a mere 2.6 bWAR<\/a> as he didn\u2019t play much defense (also 2.6 fWAR<\/a>) and that total was based on his excellent 32 HR\/103 RBI results. Projections indicate somewhat less power (25 homers or so) and significantly fewer RBI (85-90).<\/p>\n Suzuki could reduce his K-rate, which is around 25 percent, and walk a bit more (10-11 percent), but in general, he\u2019s a productive power hitter who is often rated among the top ten at his position in the game. Predictions in general say that the Cubs\u2019 power numbers will regress \u2014 connecting the dots, they\u2019re looking at the second half to base that on, when the team didn\u2019t play as well with the loss of Tucker\u2019s explosive bat and more or less limped into the playoffs on the strength of a spectacular first half.<\/p>\n No surprises there, and while it wouldn\u2019t be too much of a surprise if Suzuki clouted 30+ long balls, odds are he won\u2019t. We\u2019ll see. Suzuki is likely to bat 2nd or 4th in Craig Counsell\u2019s flexible batting order, and perhaps Alex Bregman\u2019s potent bat will provide some of the same spark that Tucker did.<\/p>\n Seiya will most likely be ensconced in right field this year, and is operating under the same protocol as Happ \u2014 it\u2019s the last year of his deal. The Cubs are unlikely to sign both players, and we\u2019ll have to see how that shakes out. The Cubs\u2019 relative lack of MLB-ready bats definitely makes this an issue, if the 2027 season does indeed happen.<\/p>\n In the meantime, right field can be an adventure at times for Suzuki. He drops balls right out of his glove and doesn\u2019t take the best routes. Granted, Wrigley is a tough field, but his NPB reputation suggested that he was far better than he appears to be defensively. He does make some good plays, though, so perhaps there\u2019s hope.<\/p>\n And maybe he\u2019ll get better strike calls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eleventh in the series. Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 veteran right fielder. 31-year-old Seiya Suzuki is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,70392,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-558422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-player-profiles","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116025569141769923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}