Plenty of star players have found new homes in the days since the end of the MLB owner's lockout and the ratification of a new CBA, and there are still quite a few big names out there waiting to be signed – or traded! But one of the bigger moves of the hot stove went down Wednesday, and it involved a player whose name you might not know … yet: Seiya Suzuki. But Fantasy Baseball players will want to get to know him over the next few weeks as they prepare for their 2022 drafts. Suzuki agreed to a five-year contract with the Cubs, and here's what you need to know about the former Hiroshima Toyo Carp star.
Suzuki is 27 (he turns 28 on Aug. 18), so he's very much still in his prime, and he comes to MLB after an excellent career in Nippon Professional Baseball. He was a four-time NPB All-Star and a three-time Gold Glover, which gives you a sense of the kind of player we're looking at here. He's got a well-rounded skill set, with 102 career stolen bases and a .309/.402/.541 triple-slash line to go along with that excellent outfield defense.
And, it's worth noting that he's done that while playing in a pretty tough park to hit in, especially for power. According to park factor data for NPB stadiums, Hiroshima's home park Mazda Stadium has a 0.77 home run factor – the second-worst in the league. Suzuki's career-high 38 homers in 134 games in 2021 looks even more impressive given that context, as do his 37.4 homers per-162-game pace since 2016, his breakout season. That he's managed that while consistently stealing bases and striking out just 15.3% of the time for his career – including 88 walks to 89 strikeouts in 2021 – makes it all the more impressive.
Of course, you can't just take what Suzuki has done in NPB and expect him to repeat it in the majors; as good as Shohei Ohtani is, he hasn't yet matched the .322/.416/.588 line he had in his age-21 season in Japan. The competition level in NPB is very high – the highest in any non-MLB affiliated league in the world, no doubt – but it's not uniformly major-league quality. You're probably talking about a level of competition somewhere between Triple-A and MLB, according to most talent evaluators, and you can see that in the ZiPS projection for Suzuki in a neutral park compared to his 2021 numbers:
- 2021: .317/.433/.636, 38 HR, 9 SB
- ZiPS: .281/.351/.480, 23 HR, 12 SB
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That's still a very solid offense player, even if it isn't the superstar level performer his surface level stats might indicate. There's risk beyond that, obviously – it's not just about the level of competition, either, but several unknowable factors about how any player will adjust to life in a new city and new country, let alone a new league.
But there's also probably some upside here beyond that projection, too. What if he ends up maintaining above-average contact rates and above-average power and ends up more like a 30-homer guy? Wrigley Field is a pretty neutral offensive environment for right-handed hitters, so it shouldn't hold back whatever potential he does have.
All in all, I think Suzuki is a pretty exciting Fantasy prospect, someone you should be looking for as a starting-caliber option. For me, that means slotting him in as my No. 34 outfielder, just in front of Jarred Kelenic, and that was a conscious decision. Like Suzuki, Kelenic carries some risk in his profile with plenty of upside as a potential five-category contributor, too. Kelenic might have more upside, but as his 2021 debut showed us, there's considerable downside risk, too. That sounds like a perfect 10th-round target.
That might end up being too high for many of you – it's certainly higher than his current ADP of 190 overall. But that price will climb now that he's signed. It's not a perfect landing spot on a rebuilding Cubs roster, but if Suzuki ends up being a power/speed threat, that matters less. Either way, he's definitely a name you need to know now.