Mirroring some of the players I’ve recently put the spotlight on, because I’m a spotlighter, whatever that means, Eugenio Suarez continues to fit the criteria of being an amazing hitter in the pre-Covid era, but then the pandemic comes around and no one can hit the ball anymore. And with Delta ranging, we might soon be on a first name basis with the Mendoza line. (Does he have a first name?) (And is the line even a man?) And Suarez has become the latest example in WTFmate?, even moreso without the caveats of last year still present where during the Covid-shortened season he hit a measly .202, but still managed 15 homeruns in just 57 games. But with just 18 in 92 games thus far, is there a resurgence instore for this current .172 hitter? Let’s find out!
Everything was just peachy (don’t say it Nick Cage) from 2017-2019 where Suarez put up averages around .270ish and built on his power output, ranging from 26 homeruns and ending with 49 in the same timeframe. The most science-based description of him was; this dude can mash. Thanks science! And this wasn’t a hitter that could just hit for power. He’s also a guy who could take a walk and keep his strikeout percentages in check. While it’d be easy to look at his stat sheet and just note that his failures at the plate the last two seasons are tied directly to his degrading plate discipline, I’m pretty sure everyone already knew that. What we’re here to find out is if this trend will continue, or if there’s enough time in the season to, well, not not be hitting under Mr./Mrs. Mendoza. Inclusion to the max!
First, his .195 BABIP. Hello BABIP, my old friend. And you’d think it was actually kinda hard to produce one so low, so I find it impressive that he’s managed to improve build on dive from last year’s robust .202 number. With a career .299 and his propensity to have stellar years at the plate when his BABIP sat at a healthier .300+, the two most obvious conclusions are that his BABIP should regress, and with it, his numbers should improve. That’s obviously not a forgone conclusion, but the math checks out!
And why wouldn’t be a for sure thing? Well, there is the idea that if you hit the ball into the ground a lot, and if you’re unlucky, you could find yourself with Suarez is. And indeed we see that his 39.0 GB% is at career high. But, his previous career high was 38.4%… leading me to believe that this is actually just bad luck. Supporting this is also the fact that his Hard% has stayed somewhat stable and in line with his career numbers. Do note that during his peak power years, this number sat at the highest of his career, 48.6% in 2018 and 46.7% in 2019. But look, I’m not here to be greedy, we just want to make sure that Suarez hasn’t dropped off the proverbial cliff.
Is there even a cliff proverb?
It’s all well and good that Suarez is still sorta hitting the ball the same way he used to, at least where it matters, but now we have to tackle what’s going on with his plate discipline. And this time, we’re going tables baby. Charts? Are charts more nautical? Plats? No, that’s architecture. Whatever. Just look at the columns and rows…
| Year | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 26.6 | 68.6 | 44.4 | 11.9 |
| 2020 | 26.9 | 65.7 | 41.6 | 12.2 |
| 2021 | 29.1 | 64.3 | 43.1 | 12.7 |
So first, his swinging ways. Hey baby. The reason we went full columns and rows with this plate numbers is because I wanted to illustrate that nothing has dynamically changed in his profile. I will admit that yes, some of these numbers do tell the tale of some struggles, but nothing sticks out as the culprit to drive him down so much as a batter. He is swinging slightly more at outside pitches and his swinging-strikes percentage has ticked up slightly because of it. But to reiterate, these are not the type of numbers that would fuel such a low BABIP and BA.
| Year | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 39.0 | 84.2 | 72.9 | 51.0 |
| 2020 | 44.1 | 82.1 | 70.5 | 47.4 |
| 2021 | 40.5 | 82.5 | 70.4 | 49.8 |
And you can see the same here. By swinging a bit more outside, he’s missing a bit more outside, yes, but he’s still making nearly the same contact in the strike-zone, and nearly the same contact in general.
Eugenio Suarez is struggling, no doubt, but I honestly don’t know why within this context. Yes, players can struggle a bit, go through a bad luck phase, but beyond that or some kind of potential injury, the numbers don’t lie. They actually reinforce how unlucky Suarez has probably been. So yes, it’s okay to be concerned with what he’s done, but it just looks to me that he’s a few hot weeks away from matching maybe not his 2018/19 numbers, but there’s nothing to say he can’t be back to the 270ish/30ish guy he was, and he just might start doing that soon. I mean, with just three hits in 26 PA’s since the All-Star break, it may not happen soon-soon, but while it’s easy to be the bear, I wanna be the bull.
Also, yes, I referenced Star Trek in the title. Don’t judge me, nerd.
Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell. You can follow him on Twitter @jaywrong.
