Albert Suárez is not your typical Baltimore Orioles phenom. His path was quite different than that of Jackson Holliday, the game’s No. 1 prospect; Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg, the back-to-back American League Players of the Week; or Heston Kjerstad, the latest young hotshot to join the club after leading the Triple-A International League with 10 homers in 21 games.
Those players were high draft picks, top 100 prospects, the products not just of enviable draft positions stemming from years of tanking, but also of a front office hitting on one selection after another. Suárez, after only two starts, looks like another organizational triumph. But he’s 34. The Orioles are his fifth major-league organization. And he spent the past five seasons in Japan and Korea.
When Suárez made his Orioles debut on April 17, he had gone six years, 204 days between major-league appearances. He pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings against the Minnesota Twins that day, another 5 2/3 scoreless against the Los Angeles Angels on Monday night. Not bad for a guy who joined the Orioles on a minor-league contract last September. Blake Snell, who signed a two-year, $62 million free-agent deal with the San Francisco Giants, has an 11.57 ERA after three starts.
The addition of Suárez, announced by the Orioles as one of seven minor league deals on Dec. 30, was the kind of offseason transaction that elicits little more than a yawn. But for Mike Snyder, the Orioles’ director of pro scouting, the move was years in the making. He first identified Suárez as a possible target in the fall of 2017, while preparing for the Rule 5 draft. Mike Elias was a year from becoming the Orioles’ general manager.
Suárez had been a swingman for the San Francisco Giants in 2016 and a reliever in ‘17. But the Giants, after re-signing him to a minor-league deal, declined to protect him on their 40-man roster. The Arizona Diamondbacks grabbed Suárez in the Rule 5 draft, then stashed him at Triple A. Suarez, who signed at 16 out of Venezuela with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2006, sought a fresh start. The following year, he began his journey to Asia.
He often was injured during his three seasons in Japan, but pitched well as a starter during his two seasons in Korea.
The Orioles continued to monitor him. Snyder wanted to sign him in the fall of 2022. But Suárez returned to the Samsung Lions with a seven-figure guarantee — a better opportunity than any major-league team was willing to give him.
What changed last year?
Suárez suffered a left calf injury in early August. The Lions, facing a Korea Baseball Organization cap on the number of foreign players they could carry, released him to replace him with another import, Taylor Widener. Snyder, seeing an opportunity that had not existed previously, contacted Suárez’s agent, Peter Greenberg.
“He’d been trying to get Albert for maybe the last three years. But the market in Asia moves very quickly,” Greenberg said. “He would always come to me early in the offseason here, but Albert would already have signed back in Japan or Korea. (Last year), though, he came to me and said, ‘I’m not going to be late this time. I want to try to sign Albert.’”
Snyder’s timing finally was right. The Lions wanted Suárez back, Greenberg said, but at a reduced salary in the $700,000-$800,000 range. Suárez was tired of being away. He is married with three children, ages 11, 8 and 4. The family lives in Katy, Texas. He had made decent money in Asia. He was ready to return full-time to the U.S.
Albert Suárez is the first pitcher with an outing of 5+ innings and no runs allowed in each of his first 2 appearances after not appearing in MLB for 5+ years, since the mound was moved to its current distance in 1893
h/t @EliasSports , @ColeJacobson32 https://t.co/rYwevszGHd
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) April 23, 2024
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