Seiya Suzuki's rookie season with the Cubs had its ups and downs, but at the end the outfielder had a solid year coming over from Japan to play in MLB. Now, entering the 2023 season, Suzuki showed up to Cubs camp looking absolutely jacked and taking a look at some of his batting practice it also appears as though the right-handed hitter is making some adjustments heading into his second year.
It was very noticeable when pictures first started to be posted on Twitter of Suzuki walking around down in Mesa, Ariz., and apparently he put on 20 pounds of muscle during the offseason.
Via the Chicago Sun-Times.
Suzuki added strength — 20 pounds of it — to improve his swing speed, first step and stamina during the course of a long season with a lot of travel.
‘‘I just want to make sure I don’t get injured during the season,’’ he said. ‘‘Just do my best to contribute to the team and obviously win a championship.’’
In 2022, Suzuki started 106 games, playing in 111 games total for the Cubs. He missed a big chunk of the year with a finger injury that sidelined him nearly six weeks from late May through the first few days of July.
But besides adding muscle, it also looks like Suzuki is making a slight change at the plate. We broke it down on this week's Pinwheels And Ivy Podcast.
If Suzuki can remain healthy all year, then there's no reason his power numbers won't go up. Even with some struggles and the missed time in 2022, Suzuki hit 14 home runs. If you do the math, that would be about 20 home runs if he would have played the full season.
The great thing about Suzuki's approach on offense is that you never feel like he's guessing. He has a great eye and rarely chases pitches out of the strike zone. He did have a 24.7 strikeout rate, but a significant part of that was incompetent umpires calling balls strikes.
If there is one change, maybe it's that the Cubs would like to see Suzuki be more aggressive. Suzuki swung at 57.4% of pitches he saw in the strike zone last year, which was the fourth lowest rate out of 205 players who had at least 400 plate appearances. You do love his patience and he's not afraid to get to two strikes, but that also opens the door to bad strike calls and we did see pitchers taking advantage of Suzuki's sometimes way too passive approach during his rookie season.
Various projection models have Suzuki hitting between 21-26 home runs in 2023. We already know Suzuki has a great sense of the strike zone and if he adds more power to his hitting profile, then it's not difficult to see him getting All-Star consideration and more importantly provide the Cubs with a difference-maker in the middle of their lineup.
You can tune into this week's entire Pinwheels And Ivy Podcast below.
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