Last Updated on July 27, 2025 by Matt Musico
Although the Milwaukee Brewers have used a tremendous hot streak to catch up in the National League Central, the Chicago Cubs have been among baseball’s best teams this season — and it’s been that way for most of the year.
They boast a league-best +116 run differential (before July 28 games), and a lot of that has to do with the way manager Craig Counsell’s offense has performed.
Has the addition of outfielder Kyle Tucker been a huge boost? You bet it has — the left-handed slugger has posted a .274/.384/.488 triple slash with 18 homers, 58 RBI, 72 runs scored, and 23 steals in 458 plate appearances. That’s all good for a 4.0 fWAR as his free agency looms this winter.
But where would the Cubs’ offense be right now without the performances of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Seiya Suzuki, and Michael Busch?
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3 Unlikely Cubs Hitters Leading the Way in the Power Department
If someone told you back in February that the first three Cubs hitters to surpass the 20-homer plateau were PCA, Suzuki, and Busch, would you have believed them? Probably not — and you wouldn’t have been alone.
Coming into the 2025 campaign, here’s what the single-season career-high mark for homers was for each of these guys, which were all set last season with the Cubs:
- Crow-Armstrong: 10 homers in 123 games
- Suzuki: 21 homers in 132 games
- Busch: 21 homers in 152 games
At the time of this writing, PCA and Suzuki have already set new career-high marks in this department, while Busch is on the verge of doing so.
These kinds of performances make the front office’s job a lot simpler ahead of the trade deadline. While president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer may look to add a complementary piece for the offense, that area of the roster is humming. That’s why the club is rumored to be focused on supplementing the pitching staff for the stretch run.
1 Interesting Observation For Each of These Players
I love diving into a player’s Baseball-Reference or FanGraphs page to see if there have been any noticeable differences that helped lead to their current level of performance. With that in mind, let’s take a deeper look at some areas that are likely contributing to success for each of these guys.
All stats via FanGraphs and current as of July 23.
Pete Crow-Armstrong
PCA’s batted-ball profile has greatly improved from the 2024 campaign. His ground-ball rate has gone from 37.5% to 31.0%, while his fly-ball rate has gone from 42.5% to 50.7%.
This is all great, but simply hitting more fly balls isn’t going to do the trick. Crow-Armstrong’s pull rate has increased from 43.5% to 49.8%, while his hard-hit rate has gone from 25.3% to 31.8%.
If we drill these percentages down to strictly fly balls, PCA’s pull rate has jumped from 25.2% to 36.7%, while his hard-hit rate has gone from 29.7% to 38.8%. It’s no shock that his OPS for this batted-ball event has gone from .589 in 2024 to its current level of 1.175.
Michael Busch
Through his first 357 plate appearances this season, Busch’s slugging percentage has improved by more than 100 points compared to 2024. What I noticed is that his plate-discipline numbers have consistently improved since making his big-league debut in 2023 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
His chase rate has gone from 29.9% in ‘23 to 25.0% in ‘24 before its current 23.5% mark. The 2024 campaign was his first full MLB season. His swing rate on strikes was 65.7% and his contact rate on strikes was 84.6%. So far this year, those numbers are at 67.4% and 86.2%, respectively.
While they’re not necessarily changes that will jump off the page, it’s the kind of progression that will make any hitting coach’s heart sing.
Seiya Suzuki
Suzuki is interesting because his batted-ball profile looks a little different. He’s been with the Cubs since 2022, and while his career hard-hit rate is 36.7%, that number has been at least 37.8% each year since 2023.
He finished 2024 with a single-season career-high mark of 21 homers after driving down his ground-ball rate from 43.1% in 2023 to 33.7% the following season. Most of that decrease went to his fly-ball rate, which increased from 34.4% to 46.9%.
Suzuki has maintained that fly-ball rate (47.9% so far in 2025), but has continued to decrease his ground-ball rate, which is currently at 27.5%. Another change is his line-drive rate, which has gone from 19.4% in 2024 to 24.6% before July 23 games.
Milwaukee’s recent hot streak is going to make the race for the NL Central crown very fun over the next few months. But as for the Cubs, they look primed to return to the postseason in some way for the first time since 2020.
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