The Cubs surprised much of the baseball world with their play in recent weeks, which pushed them to add third baseman Jeimer Candelario at the trade deadline rather than deal away rental players like Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman.
With the focus now firmly on a push toward making the playoffs in 2023, the club appears to be shortening the leash of struggling players.
That includes outfielder Seiya Suzuki, who the Cubs spent nearly $100M to add to the club’s roster prior to the 2022 campaign between Suzuki’s five-year, $85M contract and the posting fee owed to the Hiroshima Carp as payment for Suzuki’s services.
In 111 games with the Cubs last year, Suzuki played solidly in his rookie season, with a .262/.336/.433 slash line that was good for a wRC+ of 116. Suzuki began the 2023 campaign on the injured list due to an oblique issue but got off to a fantastic start when he was back in action, slashing .293/.385/.487 with a 12.6% walk rate in 174 trips to the plate through the end of May.
Unfortunately, Suzuki’s offense has cratered since then, as he’s mustered just a .214/.281/.310 slash line in 210 plate appearances since the calendar flipped to June.
That’s brought his overall campaign below league average by the measure of wRC+ (96) in 2023, and while he’s played excellent defense in right field, Cubs manager David Ross indicated to reporters (including The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma) recently that Suzuki would not be an everyday player going forward until he gets things back on track.
“He knows he needs to work on some things,” Ross said of Suzuki, “It’s hard to do that in-game. We’ll give him some time, and he’ll be back in there when we feel like he can help us win games.”
It seems that journeyman outfielder Mike Tauchman, who came to the Cubs on a minor league deal during the offseason but has impressed with a .277/.371/.431 slash line (121 wRC+) in 238 trips to the plate since joining the roster back in May, will receive the lion’s share of playing time in right field, with Suzuki making occasional starts when he or Ian Happ have a day off or when Cody Bellinger moves from center field to first base.
The Cubs are 2.5 games back of Milwaukee in the NL Central and one game back of Cincinnati for the final NL wild card spot entering play Sunday.
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