A popular name amongst the international scouting crowd, Seiya Suzuki may be posted to come stateside this offseason.
Keep in mind that his decision and the approval is not yet official or confirmed. Suzuki has talked in the past about wanting to make the move to challenge MLB and how this season would be the right time to do so. Currently the Carp are still in playoff contention and are scheduled to play through next week. So keep an eye on that through the upcoming month.
The Carp would be sending over one of the more exciting Japanese players since Shohei Ohtani. Although Ohtani was and is a different animal, the hype around Seiya Suzuki is there for a reason.
A very athletic 5’11” 216 lb build, Suzuki has become a meme for his massive transformation from being a regular teenager to a bodybuilder. Suzuki moves better than he looks however, while reaping benefits of his strength.
A four-time gold glove winner, he’s got a 70 arm, regularly tallying up OF assists against runners testing him and leads the Central League (CL) in the category. The glove and arm is good enough to give him regular playing time. He’s currently sitting at 7th in NPB in UZR (Although UZR in NPB isn’t always the most reliable stat to use). He normally plays in RF due to the arm, but realistically can man CF in the bigs thanks to his speed. I would personally play him in the corner, the arm is just too good for center. His speed will keep pitchers honest when he’s on the basepaths as well.
The main attraction for Seiya Suzuki has been the bat. He’s been one of the best hitters in NPB since 2016 when he exploded at the age of 21. Seiya has slowly gotten better and better over time finishing in the top 5 of the wRC+ for each of the past 6 years while leading the CL in 3 of those years.
At the time of publishing, Suzuki leads the CL in wRC+, OPS+, wOBA, ISO+, wRAA, BA, 3rd most in HR, and leading all of NPB in both wRC+ and WAR with 8.4. True MVP numbers for an all-around star at the plate.
His approach is very good, with just a 16 K% and a matching 16 BB%. When combined with his plus power he’s a force to be reckoned with at the plate. These numbers were better earlier in the year as he was more patient at the plate in the first half. But since traded it out to be more aggressive and exploded with power at the plate, hitting an incredible 19 HR in the past two months while hitting .360/.473/.852. Truly absurd numbers that include a 6-game straight HR streak in September where he hit 8 of them over those 6 days, and then another 5 HRs in a 5 games stretch last week.
He’s hit well against both sides of the plate with lefties being an advantage numbers and percentage wise, although a low sample size for each season.
Mechanically speaking there’s a lot to like about Suzuki’s swing. I myself have flaunted all over on my twitter about how perfect and efficient it is. It's a short, no-nonsense type of swing that works well with his typically patient approach. He has some of the strongest hands and fastest bat speeds in the league. He transfers his power from load to hips so well. He’s quick to the ball on a great swing path that allows him to get to fastballs on the inside and all over the plate. Suzuki gives me confidence for potential success against major league pitchers because of these factors of his swing. It’s beautiful.
Suzuki likes to work deep into counts, lately offering cuts early in the ABs and working his way back. Countless times I’ve watched him get to 0-2 all to fight his way back to get a walk, with the majority of his walks being out of the 3-2 count (44), compared to 3-0 (13), 3-1 (20). He has worked pullside mostly this year, with a Pull% and Cent% both around 40%, while having a NPB 4th best hard hit percentage of 44.5%.
Seiya Suzuki has been a multiple time member of Samurai Japan, most recently with the 2021 Olympic team and the 2019 Premier 12 team. Although he wasn’t hot going into the summer olympics he still got on base a fair amount of times, and was quite good at Premier 12 as he took home the tournament MVP.
Of course with any prospect, worries are self-explanatory for anyone getting their chance at the MLB. Also for anyone that hasn’t watched NPB or Suzuki, they will instantly compare him to the most recent position players of Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and Shogo Akiyama. With both coming over to less than stellar results with strikeouts galore (Tsutsugo ended this year decently at least), I can understand why the common view would be that Ohtani was an exception of hitting talent. However when comparing Suzuki to them through the 2017, 2018 and 2019 years (when they were still all in NPB), Suzuki stands out.
This article is already long enough so we’ll just look at their numbers for the 2019 season. Suzuki posted a great .335/.453/.565 with 28 HRs and 176 wRC+ and .445 wOBA in what was his 24 year old season. Tsutsugo had a down year but was mostly dragged down by a near 10% higher than normal K%, but still had a respectable .272/.388/.511 with 29 HRs, 136 wRC+ and .391 wOBA in his age 27 season. Finally with Akiyama, he was already 30 years old in 2019, but still had a good year with a .303/.392/.471 line and 20 HRs, while finishing with 141 wRC+ and .390 wOBA. All fairly similar numbers with Suzuki being higher. However, it's looking at the approach that gives me more comfort about him at the major league level.
In 2019, Tsutsugo had put up a 21.9% O-Swing%, 41.6% Swing%, 76.3% Contact%, and 9.8% SwStr%.
Compared to Akiyama who had a 24.8% O-Swing%, 44.4% Swing%, 81.5% Contact% and 8.2% SwStr%.
Suzuki beats them with a great 16.9% O-Swing, 35.4 Swing%, 81.2 Contact%, and 6.6 SwStr% in 2019.
Even when compared to this current year, he still beats them out with a O-Swing% 19.9%, 36.1% Swing%, 79.5% Contact% and a 7.4 SwStr%.
To summarize, he swings and misses much less and swings at pitches out of the zone way less than the other two did. His patience and ability to stay off of pitches out of the zone with less whiffs is huge for coming over to the majors. Since, he’ll already have a sense to wait for his pitch to hit, he is less likely to struggle with major league quality of pitching. Although he will likely have more whiffs, just out of the pure pitching talent in MLB alone, these numbers of his discipline are intriguing for his future. It can also help work him out of sticky situations at the plate, something he excels at in NPB as previously mentioned. Less strikeouts and more balls into play with an elite stick is something you like to see out of a guy coming to a league where it is almost impossible to hit at times. Especially when that guy has a solid history of international play and has shown to be able to handle higher velocity stuff (something MLB has plenty of).
Not to mention that Suzuki will be coming over at a younger age than both of them, heading into what would be his “peak” age of 27 in the states.
Ultimately, Seiya Suzuki is a player that every fan of MLB should be excited about coming over. The high floor and potential he has should make him an intriguing piece for GMs to chase heading into next year should he be posted. He's the type of guy every scout dreams about watching progress. As the season ends, we’ll find out officially from him and the team and the suspected bidding war will commence, pending CBA.
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