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As Eugenio Suarez mashes his way into the record books this season, he maintains his status as not only one of the most likable players on the team but also probably the best player, at least offensively. While 2019 was not always looking like a great year for the third baseman, he has bucked the trend from the past two seasons and come on strong with a monster August and September. One part of this late-season surge has been his productivity against breaking pitches.
Earlier this season, over at RedlegNation.com, I wrote about how Suarez was struggling to hit breaking balls. It is not something he has done well throughout his career, but it was a big part of his monster year last season. His wOBA of 0.329 vs breaking pitches was by far the best of his career. After bottoming-out this June with a 0.164 wOBA, it appears he remembered how to hit the curve.
He hit a low point in June with just a 0.164 wOBA, but since then has steadily improved, with August and September at 0.400 and 0.390, respectively. He has not quite gotten back to the 0.329 from last year, but his 0.295 is much better than the first three years of his career.
Aside from the results he is getting, he has also started hitting the balls harder, which is always a good sign.
September has not been as great as August, but he has still been above league average and much better than May through July. It is also much better than his 2017 season, when he really didn’t make consistent hard contact on breaking pitches after May.
Along with a higher Hard Hit %, he has also started barreling the ball again. This is something he did not do to a breaking pitch in all of May or June. Clearly, something has clicked recently, and he has been seeing the ball much better. There is no type of contact more effective than barrels.
Pitchers seemed to pick up on the weak spot earlier this year, throwing significantly more breaking balls to Suarez than he was used to. In 2018, he saw a breaking ball 25% of the time. That is up to 29% in 2019, with June peaking at 39%.
It has since gone down as the results have improved but considering how well Suarez hits the fastball (0.441 wOBA, 0.396 xwOBA), sometimes there just isn’t a great option. With the breaking balls being his weakest pitch and the improvement he has shown against them lately, Suarez has solidified himself as a problem for opposing pitchers.
[Photo Credit: Hayden Schiff]
