Seiya Suzuki's Burdensome Approach is Manifesting More Than Ever

What a long and strange year it's been for the Chicago Cubs. Perhaps for Seiya Suzuki more than anyone. 

Just about everywhere you look on the stat sheet, you're bound to find a new career benchmark for the Cubs' designated hitter, at least in the underlying metrics. His barrel rate (18.1 percent), average exit velocity (92.0), and hard-hit rate (50.0) each represent the top mark of his career to date, and some by a fairly wide margin. He's been able to jump his isolated power by more than 40 points off his previous career-high (.241), parlaying that contact quality into strong results to the pull side (24.6 Pull AIR%). 

And yet, something feels entirely off with Suzuki at this point in the year. His batting average sits at just .245. His on-base percentage is at .318. Those are both career-lows, and not by a small margin. His wOBA, despite the heavy increase on the power side, has dropped more than 20 points off what he turned in in 2024 (.343). Things have only gotten worse since the All-Star break, too. Thus far in the second half, Suzuki is hitting only .181, reaching base at a mere .315 clip, and has a wRC+ of 75 to his name. His ISO has fallen by nearly 200 points off his first half output, checking in at just .086 as of this writing. His wOBA is only .274, representing an even 90-point drop from the first half figure.

There are a few factors in the shape of batted ball trends that are likely contributing to such an intense decline from what looked like a career-season type of trajectory in the first half. But, as much of this doesn't really jive with what we should be seeing given the under-the-hood components, there are also some that are not quite as tangible in their ability to explain. 

Outcomes come first, as there's certainly a luck component here for Suzuki; his BABIP alone is indicative of a player running into some brutal fortune. After a .300 average on balls in play prior to the break, Suzuki's second half BABIP sits just .227. It's not Kyle Tucker bad (.203 BABIP), but it's still one of the 22 worst figures thus far in half No. 2. 

Keeping with the batted ball concept, much of that can likely be attributed to a higher volume of groundballs. His 40.3 GB% isn't drastic, but it's a roughly 13 percent increase from his first half figure. His line drive rate, specifically, has worn the brunt of that shift, as it's fallen by about 10 percent on its own. In a somewhat simplified sense, line drive contact drives BABIP, while it's hard to combat the groundball side in that regard. So, determining why the luck seems to have evaporated for Suzuki isn't a particularly difficult task.

Navigating why it's happening, though, isn't quite as simple; there isn't necessarily a specific thing within the approach that represents a defining issue. At least, not with any certainty.

Off-speed pitches have been the source of a chunk of Suzuki's groundball contact in the last two months. He made groundball contact against that pitch type 50 percent of the time in July and is at over 71 percent in August. The problem with that analysis is that, in July, it was the pitch type at which he swung at with the lowest frequency, and in the two years prior to '25, it represented his lowest output of groundball contact. So, while he's swinging at a great deal of off-speed in August and turning in a high volume of groundballs as a result, we can't state with any level of confidence that his offensive downturn is purely because of those offerings.

The zone itself could offer some insight. The following is Suzuki's zone profile in terms of Swing% from the season's first half: 

And here's the second half: 

It's obviously a lower volume of pitches overall, but the rates in the lower areas of the zone are higher in certain respects. Conventional wisdom tells us it's harder to elevate pitches down in the zone, so it's only natural that a higher rate of swings in those lower areas are going to sap Suzuki of some of his ability to lean into that Pull AIR% jump that was such a primary factor in his first half success. But, it's not as if those rate increases are across the board. They only exist in certain areas within that lower portion of the zone. Again, we're not really gaining any level of certainty here.

Instead, our surest answer might just lie in his overall approach to each plate appearance. Earlier this month, we examined Suzuki's potential role in the Cubs' collective decline on the offensive side of the ball. There wasn't anything that allowed us to discern he was doing anything differently that contributed to the struggle of the group. But, being himself was also a problem in a broad sense. That remains the case here. If anything, it's actually gotten worse.

Suzuki's first half swing rate checked in at 42.3 percent, while his chase rate came in at 27.7 percent. Each of those are some of the lowest percentages in all of baseball, leaving Suzuki as one of the more patient hitters in the game. In the second half, you're looking at a Swing% of 37.0 and a swing rate outside the zone of 19.7 percent. So, he's gotten more patient and in a pretty serious regard. 

The result has been more contact, particularly inside of the zone. His Z-Contact% is actually up about seven percent (92.4) in the second half. However, that's in conjunction with a contact rate outside of the zone that has fallen almost 13 percent (63.6 percent down to 50.8 percent between the two halves). What's happening speaks to what we discussed in looking at Suzuki as part of the bigger picture of the team's lineup: he's pinning himself down by limiting his own opportunities. 

In that previous piece, we discussed run value. Specifically, run value in leverage spots. Taking leverage out of the equation this time, this is where Suzuki falls from a visual standpoint: 

The only area in which Suzuki demonstrates any sort of aggression is over the heart of the plate. Even a slight expansion of the zone leans much heavier on the take side. That leaves him devoid of opportunities to create additional offensive value to a rather serious extent. A -16 run value on the edges of the plate is indicative of a player far too patient. Not only is he not serving as a beneficiary of borderline calls, his continued to refusal to expand the zone even slightly is impossible to ignore as a factor in these second half struggles. There's just no margin for error when you're living exclusively over the heart of the plate and nowhere else. 

So, while there are some factors we can consider in matters of pitch type and the zone, the overall approach remains the only one which we can deploy with any certainty in explaining this particular period of struggle for Seiya Suzuki. Unfortunately, it being a factor so embedded in his game at this point means it's unlikely to change. And you never want a player's approach to get markedly worse. But, there's also such a thing as being too patient. 

We've seen it often with Suzuki, but we've never seen it occur with his power potential quite this high. As he's gotten more patient, he's demonstrated the power less frequently. It's a problem, and as pitchers have adjusted to his new life as a pull-side power wizard in 2025, he's thus far failed to adjust in turn.