Welcome to the 2026-27 edition of Smash or Pass, in which we examine potential free agent and trade targets to determine whether the Red Sox should pursue them and what it would take to land them. Today, we start off with a Japanese import who’s helped the Cubs for the past few years with his pop from the right side of the plate.
I feel like the top priority for the Red Sox this winter (and probably spring…and maybe the summer…man this lockout is gonna suck) is pretty clear. The pitching staff is quite
strong with a lot of guys already under team control for the foreseeable future, the steady defense is headlined by a trio of Gold Glovers, and the offense can get on base at a solid clip—their collective .319 OBP was good for 12th in baseball, so not too bad). But by that same logic, a team playing half of its games at Fenway Park posting just the 20th-best team slugging percentage (.397) and the fifth-least amount of homers (163) means that the area for improvement is pretty obvious. I know we need some pop, you know we need some pop, everyone knows we need some pop.
Enter Seiya Suzuki: a guy who’s probably not gonna hit 40+ homers for you, but a guy who just might be the ideal answer in a free agency class that leaves much to be desired.
Who is he and where does he come from?
He’s Seiya Suzuki (like I just said), a 32-year-old MLB vet who came to by bigs by way of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in his home country of Japan. After spending close to a decade in the NPB, Suzuki signed a deal with the Chicago Cubs ahead of the 2022 MLB season.
Is he any good?
Yeah, I’d say so!
After posting a respectable .262/.336/.433 triple slash line over close to 400 at-bats in his rookie season, Suzuki has had four straight campaigns with at least 20 home runs, at least 70 runs batted in, and an OPS of at least .800. In three of those years—including 2026—his OPS eclipsed .840. The one exception in that stretch was, ironically, the one season where he hit more than 30 homers (2025). FanGraphs shows that Suzuki boasts the 17th-best WRC+ (128) since the start of the 2022 season, ahead of guys such as Bobby Witt Jr., Jose Ramirez, and Ketel Marte.
Suzuki’s put up these numbers despite the fact that he’s played half of his games at Wrigley Field. The Friendly Confines is a venue that’s graded out as the 22nd-friendliest place to hitters over the last three seasons per Savant and a park featuring a left field foul pole that’s an ungodly 355 feet away from righties trying to hit the ball to their pull side, the single deepest foul pout in the game. In case you need any more convincing, his OPS on the road (.828) is 10 points higher than his OPS at home (.818) in spite of the fact that his OBP in both instances is exactly the same (.351).
And another thing worth mentioning: his 14 defensive runs saved in 2026 per Fielding Bible was also within the top 20 across baseball.
So, yeah. I like Seiya a lot. Spoiler alert, I suppose.
TL;DR, just give me his 2026 stats
Y’know, you ask it like this every year and you never consider how rude it sounds, but whatever. I won’t get worked up about it.
In 634 plate appearance this season, Suzuki put up a .270/.368/.473 triple slash for a .841 OPS. He hit 26 homers and 31 doubles en route to driving in 86 runs. He struck out just over 24% of the time (29th percentile across MLB) and he walked close to 13% of the time (91st percentile).
Why would he be a good fit for the Red Sox?
Imagine Suzuki’s consistent production from the right-handed batter’s box at Fenway Park, a place with a left field pole 45 feet closer to the plate and with a giant fucking wall at that part of the field. Need I say more?
Seriously though, the calculus should be pretty straightforward here. I hate to post spray chart slop, but look at Seiya’s spray charts from the last two years overlaid at Wrigley Field.
Just imagine those charts with Fenway overlaid instead of Wrigley (or, figure out a way how to do it since I couldn’t, lmao) and try telling me that he wouldn’t fit right in. The team needs some juice in the lineup to slot around guys like William Contreras, Roman Anthony, Adley Rutschman, Wilyer Abreu, and (hopefully) Curtis Mead. Suzuki works as either your primary DH or a guy you can cycle in at the corner outfield spots from time to time.
And if you believe the strides Suzuki’s made on defense are real, then that latter point—the one about how he can rotate into the outfield mix—only lends more credence to the idea of bringing him to Boston. We know Roman’s dealt with injury issues as of late, as has Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu (although Wilyer effectively played a full season in 2026). Health is something that any baseball club has to consider, of course, but wouldn’t you want your best possible nine to be ready to go for October? We saw in the Bronx what a lineup running on fumes could look like, and the year before that half of the organization was in the hospital. Bringing in Seiya Suzuki would allow manager Chad Tracy to get guys off of their feet a bit more often without sacrificing much during neither the top nor bottom half of innings.
Why wouldn’t he be a good fit for the Red Sox?
I have to be honest: I can’t think of a real firm reason why Seiya Suzuki wouldn’t work out for the Red Sox. Any point that I try thinking of has something to explain the concern away. Maybe you’ll think of something that I haven’t, but I think I’m pretty much sold on this dude.
The first point I tried to challenge myself with is the fact that the lineup would be pretty right-handed heavy. I like the idea of having those guys broken up, especially when you consider that most pitchers are righties. Suzuki would join Contreras, Mead, Trevor Story/maybe Franklin Arias, Caleb Durbin, and Ceddy as full-time right-handed hitters if he were to sign. Even at Fenway Park, that on the surface gave me pause.
However, Seiya’s not a guy who gets eaten up by right-handed pitchers.
Yes, he’s generally been better against lefties when he’s at the plate, but he’s no slouch when he’s at a platoon disadvantage. Seiya’s slugged over .450 against righties in each of the last two seasons, and he was actually a reverse splits guy in 2024 as his .854 OPS against RHPs outpaced his .829 mark against LPHs. In just over 2,100 plate appearance against RHPs, his career OPS is .808. That’s quite good, and CBO Craig Breslow should not be scared off by that righty-righty dynamic.
His hard hit rate took a dip in 2026—from almost 49% in 2025 to about 39%—but the bat speed was still the same as it was last year. I’m not freaked out by that.
Does he have any injury concerns, considering he missed the start of 2026 with a sprain in his knee? Well, he still was very productive, so I’m not worried about that either.
Maybe Suzuki’s tendency to strikeout gives you the creeps—he’s never had a strikeout rate lower than 22.3%. However, the fact that he still produces mixed with the fact that his walk rate has also grown every single year since he made his MLB debut is enough solace for me to ignore the Ks. It’s a weaker free agency class; if you’re gonna be scared off by someone who strikes out a bit more than the average bear while giving you an OPS that starts with an 8, maybe you don’t deserve nice things.
Perhaps you’re worried about how Suzuki’s contract will age? I dunno, man, I can’t get too tied up in that. We’re the Boston Red Sox and we’ve already got a lot of the core locked in, some of whom are still on pre-arb deals. Story’s money will be off the books in a year, as will Masataka Yoshida’s. I won’t even try to speculate about what the new CBA will mean for the team’s payroll, but I don’t think Suzuki’s hypothetical deal (more on that in a moment) should hinder us from trying to win a very winnable American League pennant.
Besides: the world might not be here in five years time. The fog is coming.
What would it take to get him?
Kiley McDaniel of ESPN projects that Seiya Suzuki will fetch a four-year contract worth $90 million in total, or $22.5 million per year. The Athletic’s Keith Law thinks he’ll get a five-year deal worth just under $30 million a season. FanGraphs’ crowd sourced contract projections, for what it’s worth, has Suzuki primed to ink a $96 million deal over the course of four years.
If those are any indications, Suzuki is probably going to be signing something like a four or five year deal with an average annual value of around $25 million.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Cubs did extend the roughly $23 million qualifying offer to Suzuki. If the Red Sox sign Seiya, Chicago will be getting draft pick compensation for their troubles.
Show me a cool highlight.
What’s the magic word? I let the TL;DR thing slide earlier.
*sigh* Please show me a cool highlight.
That’s more like it.
How about this big homer he hit against Korea at the Tokyo Dome during this year’s World Baseball Classic?
Smash or pass?
In the words of Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker…
Probably the easiest smash for me this winter. I’m scared about how much I like the idea of adding Seiya Suzuki to this lineup. He’s a feasible guy to sign and he’d immediately improve the offense while providing some defensive cover as well. The competition to sign him may be steep given that this free agent class isn’t too strong, but I believe this is a guy you stick your neck out for. Go get it done, Craig.
