Eugenio Suárez: Inspired by shortstops
By César Augusto Márquez
It was a Tuesday afternoon on Sept. 9, 2008, when Eugenio Suárez walked out of his house convinced that this was the last time he would attend a tryout. Already 17, he was at the crossroads of his baseball career, which was why he was giving himself one last chance to secure a professional contract. Otherwise, he was ready to go to college.
“Prospects normally sign when they are 16,” Suárez told La Vida in an interview conducted in Spanish. “I was 17, and my time was passing. Several organizations had already told me ‘no.’
“Scouts prefer fast players, guys who can run 60 yards in 6.6 seconds, and I never had that speed,” said Suárez, who today stands 5-foot-11 and weighs a solid 213 pounds. “I went looking for one last chance with the Detroit Tigers. And if I didn’t make it, I was ready to give up my dream and go study engineering, because my parents had already invested too much in me.”
Practice makes a major leaguer
Despite all the previous rejections, Suárez never stopped practicing. Tigers scouts in Venezuela kept encouraging him. They believed that Suárez, who compensates for any lack of range with soft hands and a strong, accurate arm, was Major League Baseball material.
“I kept after him for the longest time, because I knew what Eugenio was capable of,” said one of the scouts, who requested anonymity because he did not have permission from the team to talk publicly. “He couldn’t run much, but the afternoon he signed, he did everything right and convinced my supervisors that he deserved a chance.”
The Tigers held the tryout in Heres Stadium in Ciudad Bolívar, the capital of Venezuela’s southeastern state of Bolívar and a city on the south bank of the Orinoco River — a fabled waterway 1,330 miles long featured in the classic English novel “Robinson Crusoe.”
If Suárez was worried about shipwrecked dreams, he calmed his nerves with a ritual he still practices today, praying to the Lord.
“I took with me my Bible, which I always carry around, and left for the tryout,” Suárez recalled. “That afternoon I made some nice plays at shortstop, hit well, and most importantly — because I think that God helped me — I ran 60 yards in 6.4 seconds. I was the first one across the finish line, and that’s how I impressed them enough to earn a contract.”
It was the last tryout he would ever attend. But this time, it was because he had fulfilled his dream and was finally a professional ballplayer.
A late bloomer
Fast-forward to today and we can see how one man’s faith was rewarded. Eugenio Suárez, who debuted with the Tigers in 2014 before being traded at the end of the year to Cincinnati, is now the Reds’ starting third baseman.
Clearly a late bloomer, he was one of several pleasant surprises in the first month of the season. While a lot of folks started with a bang, Suárez opened eyes with his overall production.
Besides hitting .329/.415/.610 with five home runs and 13 RBI in 23 games in April, Suárez finished tied for first with Washington’s Bryce Harper among position players with a 1.9 WAR. Many sluggers were whacking the heck out of the ball, but very few were hanging on the same stat line with Harper and the Angels’ Mike Trout.
Suárez was born in Puerto Ordaz, a river town in Bolívar, and raised further south in Ciudad Piar, a mining town of about 50,000 people about 48 miles south of Ciudad Bolívar. The state itself borders Brazil and is one of the few parts of the country where soccer rivals baseball as the national sport.
But from the time he was a little kid, Suárez was undeterred in his passion for pelota. He was inspired by one player, shortstop Omar Vizquel, winner of 11 Gold Gloves and successor to a legendary lineage of sublime shortstops from the country started by Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel and that includes Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio and Dave Concepción.
“My idol was always Omar Vizquel, which is why I loved playing shortstop. And then I was blessed to be able to work with him when I started in the major leagues,” said Suárez.
From short to the hot corner
When Eugenio Suárez debuted with the Tigers in 2014, Vizquel was in his first year as a coach with the Tigers. The veteran took the youngster under his wing, cementing another link in a chain characteristic to baseball. Carrasquel and Aparicio inspired Concepción, who inspired Vizquel, who inspired Suárez.
“When you’re a young kid, some guys are timid, shy, something like that. This kid seems to have a lot of confidence in himself, knows what he’s doing. It’s nice to see in a young guy like that,” Vizquel told Phil Rogers of MLB.com in a 2014 interview.
After being traded to the Reds, Suárez played mainly shortstop the following season, due to Zack Cozart’s knee injury. But once Cozart recovered, the Reds wanted to keep him in the lineup and asked him to move from short to the hot corner. If Manny Machado could do it, why not Suárez?
“Vizquel taught me a lot,” Suárez said. “He gave me very good advice. He might be the reason why I resisted the move at first to third base. I thought it would be something temporary. But now I think that it will be permanent and, honestly, I finally feel comfortable there. I’m not committing as many errors, and that has allowed me to concentrate on other aspects of my game.”
Comfortable? According to FanGraphs.com’s defensive runs above average, Suárez was the best fielding third baseman in April. In all of baseball. Manny who?
“I’ve worked a lot on my defense,” added Suárez. “It’s something that neither the team or I worry about.”
The power of a leg kick
By lifting weights and incorporating a leg kick to his swing under the tutelage of Tony Jaramillo, the Reds’ assistant hitting coach, Eugenio Suárez has also worked on his hitting, increasing his power and average. In fact, he hit 21 home runs in 2016, only the 10th third baseman in the long, storied history of the Reds to hit 20 or more in a season, a list that includes Cuban Hall of Famer Tony Pérez.
This season, he’s also swinging less at bad pitches, walking more, hitting line drives and spraying the ball. For some, Suárez is a keeper, a young player getting better every day. Cincinnati magazine wrote a story recently titled “Give Eugenio Suárez Some Damn Respect.”
“I knew I had power. I think that through faith, dedication and hard work, you can accomplish these things,” he said.
Suárez is a long way from the banks of the Orinoco and the turmoil at home. Admittedly, because of the chaos and violence, it’s not easy to concentrate. One of the 13 Venezuelan players who took part in a recent Francisco Cervelli Instagram posting criticizing the government and the deaths, his averaged dipped to around .300 in mid-May. Suárez and his wife are also expecting their first child. But the man who would be an engineer has figured out a formula for success. Faith alone doesn’t get you to the major leagues, but with hard work and dedication, it can take you a long way.
Featured Image: Joe Robbins / Getty Images Sport
