The Chicago Cubs are all set when it comes to their three starting outfield positions.
At the corners, three-time Gold Glove winner Ian Happ will man left field. In right, former Gold Glover Kyle Tucker will take the field in his first season with the Cubs. In center, of course, is Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has yet to win a Gold Glove, but is regarded as a plus-plus elite-level defender.
The questions when it comes to Chicago’s outfield center around depth.
Highly-regarded prospect Kevin Alcantara has had a very good spring training and is making a case for himself as a major league-ready asset. Glove-first non-roster invitee Travis Jankowski is an option for the team’s fourth outfielder slot. Utility men like Jon Berti and Vidal Brujan could also serve in that capacity.
The most obvious fourth outfielder fill-in, though, is Seiya Suzuki, who was moved to the role of full-time designated hitter last season after continued labored execution in right field. The loss of his outfield spot generated so much tension that the Cubs reportedly explored trading him this offseason.
Maximizing Seiya Suzuki
Suzuki, who was a five-time Gold Glove winner in the Japanese league, has been defensively inconsistent playing the tough-to-handle, sun-heavy right field position at Wrigley Field. At his best, he was average. At his worst, he was pretty rough.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell noodled a bit on Saturday at Sloan Park in Mesa, possibly hinting at a strategy to maximize the 30-year-old’s defensive skill set while minimizing his weaknesses as the definitive fourth outfielder for the team.
He started Suzuki in center field.
It may seem counterintuitive to put a guy who struggled at right field in the athletically more demanding center field spot, but reflexes and athleticism were never the Japanese star’s problem.
Chicago Cubs Thinking Outside The Box
Matthew Trueblood of North Side Baseball believes that Suzuki’s defensive issues come from the discomfort in playing right field under the notoriously difficult Wrigley Field conditions.
Per Trueblood:
“All along, though, the funny thing about Suzuki has been that he clearly possesses the raw tools to handle the outfield, and that he did so well enough over his career in Japan to win five Golden Glove Awards there. He’s fast enough—his 28.3 feet-per-second Statcast Sprint Speed is virtually identical to that of Bellinger (28.4), and a half-step better than Ian Happ (27.9). He’s much faster than Kyle Tucker (26.0, and only 26.6 even in 2023, if we want to give him grace for last year based on the shin fracture that halved his season). He has a stronger arm than Happ or Tucker, by a wide margin.
We know Suzuki was a plus defender in NPB, and he’s shown flashes of some defensive ability even since coming to the Cubs. He’s just had far too many misreads, often seeming to stem from miscalculations of the wind or issues with the sun or stadium lights. He’s seemed a bit shy of the wall at Wrigley Field, which can be a real problem for corner outfielders there; navigating the well in the right-field corner and going into the sidewall with confidence is essential to playing that position. For decades, too, right field at Wrigley has been infamous as one of the league’s toughest sun fields.”
Problem Solved?
Now, nobody will ever argue that Suzuki should play center field over Crow-Armstrong or that, really, he should play all that much there at all.
But if he can be a viable center field fill-in, while allowing the utility men on the team to be corner outfield backups, the Cubs should be fine when it comes to outfield depth. This means they can let the 22-year-old prospect Alcantara develop in the minor leagues for at least one more year, playing every day rather than grabbing scattered innings of play here and there.
At the very least, Suzuki as the fill-in center fielder is a solid idea worth exploring.
Chicago Cubs top prospect to make much anticipated debut against the Cincinnati Reds
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