Eugenio Suárez

Eugenio Alejandro Suarez
(Geno)

Bats Right, Throws Right
Height 5' 11", Weight 180 lb.

Debut June 4, 2014

Born July 18, 1991 in Puerto Ordaz, Bolivar Venezuela

Biographical Information[edit]

Eugenio Suarez was signed by scout Alejandro Rodriguez for the Detroit Tigers in 2008. He made his pro debut the next summer for the VSL Tigers.

In only his 8th major league game, Suarez came within a single of hitting for the cycle in leading the Tigers to a 12-9 win over the Minnesota Twins on June 14, 2014. Hitting 9th, the young shortstop led off the bottom of the 3rd with a homer off Samuel Deduno, then came back up later in the inning after the Tigers had batted around and hit a double off Anthony Swarzak. He walked in the 5th against Swarzak, then in the 7th, he greeted Caleb Thielbar with a lead-off triple then scored on Ian Kinsler's sacrifice fly. He add a chance to add the missing single in the 9th but grounded into a force out at third. He finished 3 for 4 with 3 runs and 2 RBIs. The performance pushed his average to .400, and the long ball was already his third, as he had gone deep off Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox on June 7th in his first career start, and had added another two days later. He ended up getting the bulk of the playing time at shortstop for the Tigers the rest of the season, hitting .242 in 85 games, with 4 homers and 23 RBIs. However, when the postseason started, it was Andrew Romine who got the start in Game 1 of the Division Series against the Baltimore Orioles. He had only one at-bat as the Tigers were swept in three games.

On December 11, 2014, the Tigers traded Suarez and pitcher Jonathon Crawford to the Cincinnati Reds for Alfredo Simon. He started the 2015 season in the minor leagues before being called up to Cincinnati on June 11th after SS Zack Cozart suffered a season-ending knee injury. He had hit .256 with 8 homers in 57 games for the AAA Louisville Bats before getting the call. He played 97 games for Cincinnati as Cozart's replacement and hit .280 with 13 homers and 48 RBIs to constitute one of the few bright spots on the team that season. in 2016, he slid over to third base following the trade of Todd Frazier in return for prospects during the off-season. He played 159 games that season, hitting .248 but with 21 homers and 76 RBIs. In 2017, he had his best season up to that point, hitting .260 with 26 homers and 82 RBIs, good for an OPS+ of 115.

On March 16, 2018, the Reds announced that he had signed a seven-year extension worth $66 million. They cited his solid production on both offense and defence, but also his pleasant personality that made him highly appreciated around the clubhouse. He had received the Cincinnati baseball writers' Good Guy Award in 2017 as proof of this. He got off to a good start, hitting .296 through his first 8 games, including collecting a career-high 5 RBIs on April 7th when he was sidelined for an extended period with a broken thumb. He suffered the injury when hit by a Jameson Taillon pitch on his right hand in a 5-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 8th. He was reactivated on April 26th. He ended up playing 143 games and making the All-Star team for the first time as he hit .283 with 34 homers and 104 RBIs, his OPS+ reaching a career-high 136.

On September 18, 2019, he hit his 48th homer of the year, setting a new record for most in one season by a player from Venezuela. The record was previously held by Andres Galarraga, who hit 47 in 1996. He had a great month of September, hitting .337 with 10 homers and 18 RBIs in 25 games. He was named the National League Player of the Month and finished the season with a batting average of .271, 49 homers and 103 RBIs in 159 games. He finished second in the league in homers, behind rookie record-setter Pete Alonso, but also led the circuit with 189 strikeouts. He started the abbreviated 2020 season stone cold, hitting just .118 over his first 20 games, before turning things around. On September 5th, he had the first three-homer game of his career in a 6-2 Reds win against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Still, the slow start meant that he finished just at .202 with 15 homers and 38 RBIs, his OPS+ down from 132 to 102. The COVID-19 pandemic that shortened the season to just 60 games was largely to blame for that, as there were simply not enough games to overcome his slow start. He appeared in the postseason for the second time, after his brief cameo in 2014, going 2 for 9 with a walk as the Reds were swept and shut out by the Atlanta Braves in the Wild Card Series. In 2021, in 145 games, he batted just .198, the lowest batting average of his career, with 31 homers and 79 RBIs. His OPS+ fell to 80. He was about to turn 30 and there was some concern that his best years were already behind him.

On March 14, 2022, he was traded to the Seattle Mariners along with Jesse Winker in return for Justin Dunn, Jake Fraley, Brandon Williamson and a player to be named later (P Connor Phillips). Even though Winker was considered the key piece of the deal for Seattle, Eugenio went on to have an excellent season, batting .236 in 150 games, with 31 homers and 87 RBIs for an OPS+ of 128. He did lead the American League in strikeouts with 196, but that was only a side note as the Mariners ended a playoff drought of over two decades. He went 4 for 9 with a pair of doubles, 3 runs and 2 RBIs in the two-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays in the Wild Card Series, and 3 for 11 with a home run as they were in turn swept by the Houston Astros in the Division Series. In 2023, the Mariners fell back in the standings, but he was still a productive hitter. From July 25-August 4, he drove in a run in ten consecutive games, breaking the team record of 9 set by Edgar Martinez back in 1995. He finished the year at .232 with 22 homers and 96 RBIs. He was one of only two players to appear in all 162 games that season - the other was Marcus Semien of the Texas Rangers - and led the circuit in strikeouts (208) and sacrifice flies (11).

On November 22, 2023, he was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for C Seby Zavala and P Carlos Vargas. The D-Backs had just played in the World Series, but did not have a regular third baseman, especially as veteran Evan Longoria was expected to retire. Eugenio won the starting job at the hot corner in 2024 and on July 30th had what looked at the time like a career game as he banged out three homers and drove in five runs in a 17-0 demolition of the Washington Nationals at Chase Field. It was the second three-homer game of his career, following the one he had with the Reds in 2020. In all he played 158 games and hit .256 with 30 homers and 101 RBIs for an OPS+ of 116. The Diamondbacks finished tied with the Atlanta Braves for the final wild card spot, but the tiebreaker went Atlanta's way so they missed the postseason by the thinnest of margins.

Suárez started the 2025 season red hot, when his first five hits of the season were all long balls. The most spectacular of these came in the team's fifth game on April 1st at New Yankee Stadium, when his 8th-inning grand slam off Mark Leiter Jr. keyed a 7-5 come-from-behind win over the New York Yankees. On April 26th, he became the 19th player to have a four-homer game, doing so against the Atlanta Braves; unfortunately, he was only the third to do so in a loss, as Arizona ended up on the wrong end of an 8-7 loss. His fourth homer - his 10th of the season - was a solo shot off Raisel Iglesias that tied the game in the bottom of the 9th, but Atlanta cashed in its ghost runner in the 10th, and Arizona was unable to reply. He went 4 for 4 with 4 runs and 5 RBIs, as three of the homers came with the bases empty. The last player with a four-homer game had also done so for the D-Backs, with J.D. Martinez achieving the feat on September 4, 2017; interestingly Suarez had been a witness of the instance before that, as his teammate at the time, Scooter Gennett, had done it for the Cincinnati Reds on June 6th that same year. The last player to do so in a losing cause had been Bob Horner in 1986. The game also gave him the major league home run league, one ahead of four other players including teammate Corbin Carroll. On June 5th, he was at the center of the action in one of the greatest comeback wins in franchise history in another game against the Braves: the Diamondbacks entered the top of the 9th trailing 10-4 that day, and as the lead-off batter of the inning he promptly struck out against reliever Scott Blewett. However, his teammates overcame a win probability estimated at just 0.1% - the lowest possible number - by hitting a pair of homers and a couple of run-scoring singles, to bring Suarez back for a second at-bat in the inning, with the team now trailing by one. Facing closer Iglesias, against whom he had hit his fourth homer of the game on April 26th, he hit a two-run double that put Arizona ahead, 11-10, and Shelby Miller then pitched a scoreless bottom of the 9th to nail down a supremely improbable win. He was named to play in the All-Star Game for the second time and on July 21st won the NL Player of the Week honor for the fourth time of the season. He was just the third player to do so, after J.D. Martinez the year of his four-homer game, and Shohei Ohtani in 2024. By then, his name was at the center of various rumors in anticipation of the trading deadline, as the Diamondbacks had positioned themselves as sellers, and with Eugenio about to hit free agency, he was an obvious "rent-a-player" candidate. Those plans were almost upended on July 28th, when he was hit by a pitch on the right hand by Detroit Tigers reliever Will Vest and had to leave the game. X-rays on his index finger were negative, however. Two days later, on July 30th, news reports indicated that a deal had been struck, although it was not confirmed immediately: Suarez would go back to his former team, the Mariners, in return for three prospects - 1B Tyler Locklear and Ps Juan Burgos and Hunter Cranton. With 36 homers at the time of the trade, Suarez had more than any previous player implicated in a mid-season transaction, beating out the 34 by Mark McGwire when he went from Oakland to St. Louis in 1997. Suarez was also leading the NL with 87 RBIs at the time of the trade. He played another 53 games with Seattle, batting just .189 but with 13 homers and 31 RBIs, giving him 49 and 118 respectively for the season. His OPS+ in Seattle was 94, in marked contrast with the 142 he had posted in Arizona. He hit just .095 (2 for 21) in the Mariners' win over the Detroit Tigers in the Division Series, although one of his two hits was a homer, but his bat came alive in the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays. He went 8 for 26 with a double, two homers and 7 RBIs as Seattle came within a hair of making it to the World Series for the first time in franchise history.

He became a free agent after the 2025 season, but in early 2026, as January was coming to an end, he had still not found a new team. A deal was struck on February 1st when he agreed to a one-year deal to return to another of his former teams, the Cincinnati Reds. The deal was for $15 million, with a mutual option for another season at $16 million. He was expected to be mainly a DH for the Reds, who had two-time Gold Glove winner Ke'Bryan Hayes to play third base. Before the season started, he again played for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, and helped lead his country to victory as the starting DH. He was one of the biggest heroes of the upset win when he drove in the winning run in the person of pinch-runner Javier Sanoja from first base with a double off Garrett Whitlock in the top of the 9th, breaking a 2-2 tie.

Notable Achievements[edit]

2-time NL All-Star (2018 & 2025)
20-Home Run Seasons: 9 (2016-2019 & 2021-2025)
30-Home Run Seasons: 6 (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2024 & 2025)
40-Home Run Seasons: 2 (2019 & 2025)
100 RBI Seasons: 4 (2018, 2019, 2024 & 2025)

Records held[edit]

Home runs before changing teams, season, 36, 2025

Related Sites[edit]

Eugenio Suarez on mlb.com

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Eugenio Suárez

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