Reds GM Nick Krall kicked off the offseason by stating that “going into 2022, we must align our payroll to our resources and continue focusing on scouting and developing young talent from within our system.” While subsequent reports have indicated that the Reds aren’t entirely tearing things down, the team has already parted ways with such veterans as Wade Miley and Tucker Barnhart, and combined with last winter’s trade of Raisel Iglesias to the Angels, that marks three notable players given away for virtually nothing in salary-dump fashion.
Much to the dismay of Cincinnati fans, the gradual increase in spending that followed six losing seasons from 2014-19 now appears to be over. That rebuild resulted in winning records in both 2020 and 2021, but only a two-game appearance (without a run scored) in the expanded 2020 postseason to show for the Reds’ efforts. It is safe to say that the pandemic is in large part to blame for ownership’s apparent decision to limit spending, and yet it also can’t be ignored that some of the higher-paid members of the Reds roster have underachieved — a critical setback for any mid-market team.
Case in point, Eugenio Suarez.
The third baseman’s seven-year, $66MM extension in March 2018 was one of the early signposts that the Reds were getting ready to open the pocketbook and start building the core of their next contender. The extension covered Suarez’s three remaining arbitration years and up to five of his free agent years (Cincinnati has a $15MM club option on his services for 2025, with a $2MM buyout).
Suarez earned the extension after posting some solid offensive and defensive numbers over his first three seasons in the Queen City, and the Reds’ decision to lock him up looked even wiser considering how Suarez performed in 2018-19. Over his age 26-27 seasons, Suarez kicked up his production to another level, hitting .277/.362/.550 with 83 home runs over 1268 plate appearances, good for a 132 wRC+ and a 133 OPS+. Suarez received down-ballot MVP attention in both seasons, made the All-Star Game in 2018, and cracked 49 homers in 2019 to tie the second-highest single-season mark in Reds franchise history.
It certainly seemed as if Suarez was set to be one of the cornerstones of a now-loaded Reds lineup that added the likes of Nick Castellanos and Mike Moustakas in the 2019-20 offseason. However, Suarez simply hasn’t been the same since, and there are some unwelcome signs that 2018 and 2019 may represent his peak.
Some red flags even emerged during that 49-homer season. Suarez’s .351 xwOBA was well below his .381 wOBA, and his strikeout rate ballooned to 28.5%, after Suarez struck out at only a 23.8% rate over his first five MLB seasons. As per Statcast, 2019 also marked the lowest line drive (24%) and grounder (36%) rates of Suarez’s career, as he sustained the big increase in his fly-ball rate that began in 2018. Statcast’s “Expected Home Runs” data only covers the last three seasons, so while Suarez’s 2018 numbers can’t be analyzed, the xHR metric indicates that Suarez “should” have hit only 39.1 homers in 2019.
The other glaring trend was Suarez’s evolution into being a dead pull hitter. Since the start of the 2019 season, the right-handed hitting Suarez has hit the ball to left field 50.5% of the time, the fourth-highest pull rate of any qualified hitter in baseball. While teams increased their shift usage against Suarez in 2019, it didn’t hamper his offense too much thanks to that sky-high 29.5% homer rate. In fact, Suarez had a whopping .423 wOBA against the shift in 2019.