Pittsburgh Pirates: What Jack Suwinski Can Do to Improve in 2024

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Jack Suwinski made improvements last season to put together a quality season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, what can he do to improve further this season?

Jack Suwinski was one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ standout rookies in 2022. He batted .202/.298/.411 with a .311 wOBA, and 100 wRC+. He hit for good pop, hitting 19 home runs in only 372 plate appearances and owning a .209 isolated slugging percentage. Overall, it wasn’t a bad season, just not great. He was league average in OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. But he then had a quality breakout campaign in 2023.

Through 534 plate appearances, Suwinski slashed .224/.339/.454 with a .341 wOBA and 112 wRC+. Suwinski’s power got even better as he saw his ISO jump to .230. He also went yard 26 times. It was a 12% uptick in overall production per wRC+, and while that was a significant jump, he still has some stuff he could work on heading into 2024. But first, let’s see what he improved on.

What He Improved In 2023

Suwinski’s strike zone recognition became much better in 2023. In 2022, he had a chase rate of 24.5%, which ranked in the 75th percentile. Last year, he swung outside the K-zone even less frequently, 18.2% of the time, to be exact. That was the 5th lowest chase rate last season, with only Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, Lars Nootbaar, and LaMonte Wade Jr. Suwinski’s walk rate, in turn, saw an impressive jump from 11% to 14%.

Suwinski also changed his batted-ball approach. His exit velocity went from 88.3 MPH, which was in just the 38th percentile in 2022, to 90.5 MPH, coming in the 75th percentile. Meanwhile, his hard-hit rate rose from the 52nd percentile at 40.2% to the 64th percentile at 43.4%. Hitting the ball hard wasn’t his only improvement, but he got far better at hitting for more quality contact.

Suwinski’s 12.2% barrel rate was well above average in 2022. It was still in the 86th percentile, but in 2023, he improved it to 15.7%. This was the 8th highest rate in baseball and ahead of popular sluggers, including Pete Alonso, Ronald Acuna, Rafael Devers, and just behind the National League home run leader Matt Olson, who sat at 16.4%.

Suwinski became a lot more fly ball heavy. He upped his fly ball rate by over 10% from ‘22 (42.3%) to ‘23 (53.6%). This was due to an 8.1-degree increase in launch angle. The combination of a higher launch angle and more hard-hit baseballs led to a dramatic uptick in barrel rate.

What Still Needs Working

Suwinski’s defense in center field was not bad. Defensive runs saved did not like his glove work, but in terms of outs above average, he was in the 81st percentile at +3 OAA. Suwinski has good range. He was in the 81st percentile of sprint speed and used that speed to run good routes. But his first-step reaction was not good.

Yellow arrow is pointing at Suwinski. Very good at tracking down fly balls but his first step is garbage pic.twitter.com/h7mkyQTyrU
— Ethan Fisher (@efisher330) January 11, 2024

Now in Suwinski’s defense (no pun intended), it was his first year playing center field full-time. It may not seem like a major change, but that different angle of seeing the ball come off an opponent’s bat may have thrown him off a bit. He has put in some work this off-season, however, and is looking to improve this area of his game, according to Kevin Gorman of the Trib Live .

The other thing Suwinski needs to work on is his plate discipline. Suwinski struck out 32.2% of the time, 1.6% more often than he did in 2022. But Suwinski did start taking a different approach late in the season in September. While he swung outside the zone more often with a 26.6% chase rate, he also made contact on chase swings 60.3% of the time compared to just 50.7% in April through August. While he swung 6.4% more often, his swinging strike rate barely budged, going from 10.9% to 10.8%.

This approach worked well, as he cut his strikeout rate down from 33.6% to 26.2%, but his OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ went from .779, .338, and 110 to .848, .355, and 122. But this did mean he had to sacrifice some raw power. His exit velocity and barrel rate sat at just 88.9 MPH and 9.6%. Both are still above average but closer to his 2022 rates. Do keep in mind that this is only his September numbers. It’s a sample size of just 103 plate appearances. But that doesn’t mean positive steps weren’t being made in September.

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