Seiya Suzuki Has Turned a Quick Release into a Real Run-Stopping Outfield Arm

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Check the top of Statcast's leaderboard for outfield arm value in 2026, and you'll see Pete Crow-Armstrong wrestling for first place with the Dodgers' Andy Pages. If you've watched either play over the last two seasons, that's no surprise. Pages has as much raw arm strength as anyone in the game. Crow-Armstrong can throw hard, too, but the real brilliance for him comes from the ground. He uses his speed well, to get under and behind fly balls for good throws and to close faster on hits than other outfielders. He not only gets to the ball quickly, but uses his quick feet to launch himself into his throws. I have sung this song before. More than once, actually. It's a joy to watch value that comes from an unexpected place in baseball. Crow-Armstrong's arm value comes from his feet; what a delight. It's not surprising, though.

No, to find a surprising name on that leaderboard, you have to go just one spot lower. That's where Seiya Suzuki is. Though a couple of overly ambitious opposing runners have helped him accumulate value this year via very bad 'go' decisions, this isn't a fluke, either. One year after the team tried to move Suzuki into a full-time designated hitter role, he's not only made great strides in terms of range and catch rate, but is finding a lot of value in his arm, too. But the fun part is where that's coming from.

Suzuki has always had a strong arm. In his five seasons since coming over from Nippon Professional Baseball, his average arm strength on competitive throws reads thus:

• 2022: 89.7 MPH
• 2023: 91.0
• 2024: 89.4
• 2025: 90.7
• 2026: 89.5

He doesn't have any Statcast-recorded throws over 97.6 MPH, but he's always shown the ability to get off strong throws in the tier just below elite. Statcast's arm strength metric is imperfect, but its estimate has put him in the top quintile of the league in each season he's played with the Cubs. However, that hasn't always translated to actual value. Before this season, Statcast estimated that Suzuki was worth -4 runs with his arm, despite throwing hard.

Sometimes, arm value and range value overlap in ways that muddy measurements of both skills. The lowlight reel for Suzuki from 2022-25 includes plenty of plays on which a runner got an extra base because of his misread, or a ball he couldn't field cleanly, rather than because he didn't make a timely or accurate throw. But there were also some hard lessons for him to learn about the speed of the game in MLB, as opposed to NPB, with regard to both how hard batters hit the ball and how fast even relatively slow guys run. There were times when he seemed not to realize he had an opportunity to prevent an extra base, as on this longish fly ball that could have been a single:

At times—on that play and on some others—he held the ball too long, diagnosing the play more than the movement of runners and the position at which he reached the ball should have allowed. At other times, he got rid of the ball quickly, but did so purely to leave the rest of the play in the hands of (most often) Nico Hoerner. In effect, he sometimes threw to the wrong base or cutoff man, because he knew he needed to throw it in but wasn't quick enough in formulating the plan that would prevent a runner from going or produce an out. 

What's changed, as you can see from the average throw velocities above, is not how hard Suzuki can fire the ball in from right field. Rather, it's how well he's understanding the play even as he's getting to the ball, and how sensationally fast he's getting rid of it once he fields it. Here's a play on which he absolutely would have allowed a double in past years.

There was even one embarrassing occasion, back in 2024, when Gabriel Moreno hit a ball much like that one, and Suzuki first froze, then threw behind Moreno—who had time to anticipate that mistake and took second more on the throw than on the hit. Not here. Some right fielders stop this from being a double by fielding it on a flatter angle, cutting it off shallower in the corner. Others might not stop the runner from trying the advancement, but get them at second on a laser of a throw. Here, Suzuki played the angle that he's comfortable with, given his responsibility to stop anything from getting into the deep and quirky right-field corner at Wrigley Field, but knew he needed to get around the ball and fire it toward second as fast as possible. He's always had the physical tools to release the ball quickly with plenty on it; he hasn't always had the combination of familiarity and anticipation to actually do so. But he sure does now.

That's not a one-off, either. All year, Suzuki has been getting to balls a bit more quickly, but getting throws off much more quickly. Sometimes, the opponents are stopping purely in response to how well he moves—a third-base coach throws up a late stop sign when he sees the ball leave Suzuki's hand so soon.

At other times, it feels like the league is responding to a changing collective scouting report. This guy who used to struggle with quick releases and against whom you could once gamble a little bit is now a different beast.

There's no public data on exchange time for outfielders, but if you've watched Suzuki this season and in the past, you can see the difference. He's unloading faster, with no loss of accuracy or speed. One by one, the elements that made him such a decorated and respected outfielder in Japan are coming into view for fans in the United States. Some of the credit goes to outfield instructor Quintin Berry, but Suzuki has clearly worked hard to be not only as physically adept as possible, but the smartest outfielder he can be, too. If Crow-Armstrong's arm value comes from his feet, Suzuki's comes, increasingly, from his eyes and his brain. He has the talent to fire a 95-MPH missile without a crow hop, but now, he also has the comfort with his position and the speed of the American game to actually get off that throw—consistently, exceptionally quickly, and to the right place.

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[Patrick88]

Getting his trade value up…