We have been doing this for a few years now: looking at the top free agents, using the contract Ben Clemens suggests he’ll get, and asking whether you would like the Jays to give him that contract. This year, the lockout makes it a little more complicated. Keith Law’s list is here. Ben Clemens’is here.
Number two on Ben Clemens’ list and number four on Keith Law’s list is Seiya Suzuki. Suzuki is 32, he turns 33 next August. He’s played five seasons with the Cubs, with a .269/.351/.472 line in 675
games. He has 113 home runs, 316 walks and 719 strikeouts.
This past season, he put up 5.1 bWAR (the best of his career) with a .270/.368/.473 line, with 26 home runs, 81 walks and 155 strikeouts.
I guess the question is do you think he can keep up this level of performance into his mid-30s.
Among the thing Law said:
He’s a solidly above-average hitter, probably on the downswing, and at least a solid-average defender in right field as well who’s improved his jumps enough to mitigate his declining speed. His 4.5 fWAR was a career high and I think there’s some walk-year inflation in it; he’s probably a 3-4 WAR player for the next few years, trending down by the end of a five-year contract, and I’d be inclined to come in under $30 million a year because of his age and the warning signs in his hard-hit rates.
Clemens:
Teams have mostly gotten out of the business of giving long-term contracts to hitters over 30, but when they do, it’s for bat-first types who have few holes in their game, and that describes Suzuki perfectly. He checks the three boxes of good eye, good contact, and good power, which gives him room to have a down year in one area and still be viable. I think that the uncertainty around the economic structure of the game will keep him from getting five-plus years, but that shouldn’t stop him from getting the second-biggest AAV in the class.
Ben figures him to get a four-year, $108 million dollar contract, averaging $27 million a year. Not Skubal money, but he won’t be going hungry.
