There are a lot of things about the Braves’ strong start to the 2018 that many of us would have considered to be unlikely. Ozzie Albies hitting like a middle of the order power bat, Dansby Swanson rebounding from a horrid 2017 season to being one of the better hitters to start 2018, Ryan Flaherty’s BABIP heater....all of these things both have helped the Braves exceed expectations during a brutal month on the schedule and were not necessarily predicted by many to happen.
One of the other keys to the Braves’ hot start has been the play of catcher Kurt Suzuki. Suzuki was really good in 2017 as he was hitting home runs at a prodigious rate (19 in 309 plate appearances) and seemed to produce at the plate every game he played in. However, given his age and overall offensive track record, many people (including myself) expected significant regression from the Braves’ catching corps which was one of the most productive in the major leagues last season.
Fast forward to the 2018 season and instead of coming back to Earth, Suzuki just keeps raking and currently ranks third amongst all catchers in the major leagues with at least 60 plate appearances with a 0.8 fWAR. With Tyler Flowers out since his first at-bat of the season, the Braves needed Kurt Suzuki to step up and he has down so in spades. Suzuki hasn’t just been productive, he has shaped himself into one of the best catchers in the game. Here is a quick breakdown of some of the reasons why.
Dingers
The easiest thing to point to as to why Suzuki has turned into one of the most productive catchers in baseball is the long ball. Suzuki has always been a guy that had the ability to turn on a fastball, but he was not necessarily known as a big power threat before last season. Before his 19 home run season in 2017, his previous career high in terms of dingers was 15 way back in 2009 and it took him 614 plate appearances that year to get there.
It would be easy to assume, then, that his 2017 season that saw him eclipse his career high in half the number of plate appearances was fluky. This may still be somewhat true as that level of production is hard to sustain, but he has continued to do so this season. He has four home runs in 68 plate appearances this season with HR/FB% numbers nearly identical to last season’s outburst and he sports a better hard hit ball percentage than last year (43.6% vs. 33.3%). We are still dealing with a small sample size here, but the early results are quite promising.
He is near the top in wRC+ (kinda) since 2017 among catchers
Again, given his numbers over the last season+, this isn’t crazy surprising but still worth noting as his hasn’t just been a home run machine. Suzuki has been a really good hitter since the start of the 2017. If you look at catchers who have at least 300 plate appearances since the start of last season, Suzuki’s wRC+ of 137 ranks second only to the Dodgers’ Austin Barnes.
The caveat here is that Suzuki has a significantly smaller sample size than most catchers on this list as he has only played in 100 games over that span whereas most of the catchers who qualify have 120+ games over the same time period. Whether or not Suzuki can keep raking while getting the majority of the starts behind the plate (which honestly he probably should even with the return of Tyler Flowers) will be interesting to watch given how much catching can wear a player down.
He doesn’t strike out
In an era that has seen guys sell out for power leading to leading to (or at least contributing to) increases in strikeouts, Suzuki stands out as a guy who does not strike out very much. If you look at the top 10 catchers in terms of fWAR since the start of the 2017 season (again, with a minimum of 300 plate appearances), Suzuki’s strikeout rate of 11.4% is tops. Only Buster Posey’s strikeout rate of 11.5% is even close to challenging him for top honors.
Its worth considering that even though he doesn’t strikeout, Suzuki also doesn’t walk a ton either as his walk rate of 6.1% is pretty mediocre amongst his catching peers. As we will see in a second, that he has been as productive as he has been putting the ball in play as much as he does with a BABIP as low as he has is kinda crazy.
The guy gets on base despite an unfortunate BABIP
Even with a walk rate that can best be described as “eh” and a .273 batting average on balls in play (bottom ten amongst his 300 plate appearance catcher peers), Suzuki has managed to post a very reasonable .362 on-base percentage since the start of the 2017 season. How? Well, a disregard for his body has helped quite a bit. Kurt Suzuki has been hit by 16 pitches in right at 100 games with the Braves. He has a long way to catch Anthony Rizzo’s 30 HBPs over the same time span, but on a per plate appearance basis....Zuk is right there with him.
Over-performing one’s BABIP in the batting average department by nearly twenty points requires a certain amount of both unlucky-ness as well as power (since home runs don’t count towards BABIP) which makes for some interesting statistical comps. One could assume that given his batted ball profile, we should see his BABIP numbers improve a bit, but given his running ability...one shouldn’t expect TOO much improvement. One player that has profiled similarly, although not quite as extreme) has been former Brave and current Astro Brian McCann as his BABIP and batting average have been roughly the same since the start of the 2017 season although McCann has, just at the surface statistical level, been “unluckier” than Suzuki in terms of BABIP by over 20 points.
The Seitzer effect?
So what is the cause of this career renaissance for Suzuki? Well it would be easy to point to him hitting less ground balls and hitting the ball harder, Kurt has been quick to point out how important the advice of Braves’ hitting coach Kevin Seitzer has been for him. Not only has he benefited from changes in his approach as well as mechanics that has let him barrel more balls and hit the ball with more authority, but Seitzer has improved Suzuki’s practice as well as Suzuki’s swing in practice and in games were different which led to some inconsistencies.
Whatever the reason may be, Kurt Suzuki’s emergence has both been a godsend for a team that lost Tyler Flowers very early in the season as well as been one of the more fascinating developments throughout baseball. Under contract just for the 2018 for a bargain price of $3.5 million, Suzuki has solidified his status as one of the best catchers in baseball. If he can continue to produce at a rate even close to what he has been doing for the Braves, methinks that his next contract will be for considerably more.