Albert Suarez 2024

[BRobinsonfan]

Obviously, he's gonna come down to earth eventually, but I like the way he looks on the mound. He has a solid, stable, balanced delivery.  Shintaro Fujinami, by contrast, always seemed precariously balanced on one leg, as if he could fall off to one side or the other at any moment. I also like the way he works up in the strike zone with the four-seam fastball and consistently is at 94 – 95 when he does. He's also getting good movement on his breaking stuff. It's nice to see him have some success, even if it ends up being fleeting, this late in his career. 

[PeregrineT]

1 hour ago, Orioles West said:

I don’t know how long this Suarez wave will last, but it’s fun and a really good story to see a guy fight for one more chance and take advantage of it. 

Right, way to stake a claim in your first games in a number of years.  Hes just seized that opportunity and so far won't even give them the chance to think about the next guy, really impressive.

[Snutchy]

I want to see how the league adjusts to him after another 2-3 starts before I start calling him a #3. There isn’t much reference material on him after his adjustments over spring. 
 

What’s also important are the adjustments he makes back. Still, he looks solid!

[G54377]

I think eventually (and perhaps ideally) he's the multi inning bullpen guy and can spot start in a pinch. BTW, what's his service time look like? When would he be a FA?

Edited April 23 by G54377

[Orioles West]

1 hour ago, Snutchy said:

I want to see how the league adjusts to him after another 2-3 starts before I start calling him a #3. There isn’t much reference material on him after his adjustments over spring. 
 

What’s also important are the adjustments he makes back. Still, he looks solid!

I agree — not enough starts yet to establish a full time rotation spot — I just love how he is making the most of this opportunity. Those adjustments the league makes next should happen fairly quick, but I kind of hope this gutsy effort rolls on a while longer.

[Malike]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I think the difference here is we see the whiffs on the stuff. That's a great sign for continual success. I don't expect him to keep throwing up zeros for entire starts of course, but I do like the stuff. It's really going to come down to whether his command holds up. 

Gotta like what we see so far.

Yeah, he's getting a lot of whiffs which is good. I'm still dubious that he's going to be a long-term piece for the whole season as a starter and I'd love to eat crow because if he can help in an area where we need it, that would be huge. Stuff was a tick down from the first start but he was getting some uncomfortable swings. 

He'd most certainly be better out of the pen than Ramirez or Baumann.

[Sports Guy]

Let’s not go overboard here. 

We are seeing a lot of encouraging things. That’s great. 

Could he be better than Kremer or Irvin or Wells?  Sure, it’s possible.

But we have a long ways to go before we can get there. 

For now, you keep running him out there and see how good he can be. 
 

[Aristotelian]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Let’s not go overboard here. 

We are seeing a lot of encouraging things. That’s great. 

Could he be better than Kremer or Irvin or Wells?  Sure, it’s possible.

But we have a long ways to go before we can get there. 

For now, you keep running him out there and see how good he can be. 
 

Agreed, let's see him against some tough lineups before we draw any conclusions. I believe Mike Wright had back to back shutouts in his first two starts.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I’ll be happy if Suarez settles into being a reliable bullpen arm. I want to see how Suarez does after the league gets enough film in him and adjusts.

[interloper]

I'm sort of bracing for what happened in ST, which was that he started super strong and kind of faded with each start. He was already down a mph or so on his fastball in this last one, but then again he had a much better changeup this time. 

So we'll see. 

Edited April 23 by interloper

[Malike]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Let’s not go overboard here. 

We are seeing a lot of encouraging things. That’s great. 

Could he be better than Kremer or Irvin or Wells?  Sure, it’s possible.

But we have a long ways to go before we can get there. 

For now, you keep running him out there and see how good he can be. 
 

The main concern I have is the amount of hard contact and looking at statcast bears that out. 15th percentile in Avg Exit Velocity at 91 MPH and 7th percentile in Hard Hit % at 51.6%.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Malike said:

The main concern I have is the amount of hard contact and looking at statcast bears that out. 15th percentile in Avg Exit Velocity at 91 MPH and 7th percentile in Hard Hit % at 51.6%.

Yea, definitely a concern.

Hes a great story but really good pitchers don’t normally sit around in obscurity until their mid 30s.  
 

It’s possible they found something in him but the realistic thing is that this is short lived but perhaps there is a role for him in the pen and he can have a late blooming career as a reliever.  Nothing wrong with that.

[luismatos4prez]

Reminds me of Miguel Gonzalez, who came out of nowhere to be a major contributor to some playoff runs. 

I doubt he ends up as a rotation mainstay. But I was certain O'Hearn would turn into a pumpkin after a few weeks too and he still hasn't.

[CaptainRedbeard]

Suárez is giving up a lot of hard contact, but on high fly balls or ground balls. He has a .218 xBA and .314 xSLG, and a 82nd percentile barrel rate. I don’t know if that’s a tightrope he’s walking and it’s just a matter of time before the barrels come, or he’s going to be able to do that consistently to some degree - time will tell. 

What’s clear is the fastball plays well up in the zone and he’s been good at locating it there, getting a ton of whiffs and easy fly balls. The changeup looks promising too. I’m skeptical of the cutter, but it looks like it plays pretty well as a change of pace for glove side movement given the huge arm side run on the fastball and changeup. 

I still see a potentially dominant RP when I watch him, and worry that he’s not going to hold up as a SP given how much he runs out of gas later in these appearances. He also wasn’t able to hit the same velo he did in his second start after emptying the tank in his debut.

I fear if we keep running him out there as a SP, he’s going to eventually either throw more ~93-94 mph and lose effectiveness, or blow out his arm. I’m worried of jeopardizing a potentially dominant RP in that pursuit. However we have to keep rolling with him while he’s one of the 5 best SP and hope for the best, and he certainly is right now. I just hope he ends up in the pen due to there being 5 better, healthy SP before he has any injuries.

[Sports Guy]