The Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball are re-signing right-hander Robert Suárez, reports Jon Morosi of MLB.com (Twitter link). Suárez will return to the Nishinomiya-based club in 2021 and has a player option for 2022. Altogether, the deal comes with a guarantee in the $6.75MM range, per Morosi.
A 29-year-old reliever, Suárez has spent the past four seasons at Japan’s highest level. He has a cumulative 3.53 ERA across 142.2 relief innings for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and the Tigers. This past season, his first as a Tiger, Suárez logged a 2.24 mark over 52.1 innings, with a solid combination of 8.6 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9.
Suárez has never played affiliated ball in the United States, but he’d drawn some attention from MLB teams this winter on the heels of that strong season, Morosi notes. Instead, he’ll remain with the Tigers, where he figures to again serve as the primary closer for the Central League team.
How on earth has a Venezuelan playing in NPB not ever played affiliated ball?
NPB teams have academies in the Dominican (think Alfonso Soriano) and perhaps may have them in Venezuela. id also imagine NPB teams have the money to be strong players for less hyped international amateurs.
NPB teams do not have academies in the DR nor Venezuela at the moment. They do have scouts in latin america and the U.S. It is rare for an international amateur to sign with them first but it has happened like the Soriano case.
Suarez is a unique situation. I heard he had an issue as an amateur and could not sign with affiliated teams. He played in mexico for a few years and had some MLB interest but ultimately signed with NPB. He has signed a very good contract probably better than what he could have gotten from an MLB team.
speaking of NPB players named Suarez, Albert Suarez has done pretty well since joining Yakult.
Now guys re-signing overseas who never played affiliated ball in the US are getting their own posts? The MLB interest in this guy must have really been strong for that to be the case. Why have I never heard of him? Which MLB teams were interested in him?
@BovineCrab
Despite what you may believe or ‘think,’ baseball is played outside America and people are interested in other leagues because they actually love the game of baseball.
He is a free agent that signed for a good $ amount. He had strong MLB interest. Yes he should deserve his own post, this is a baseball site.
Am i mistaken or is that a big time NPB contract, especially for a reliever.
Edit: as of 2019 the highest per yer salary was jusl over 5.8 mil
yeah that’s fairly solid for a reliever. shows that there must have been some serious MLB competition.
Last year the top 3 players made this per year
Sugano, Tomoyuki 6 mil
Yanagita, Yuki 5.3 mil
Sarfate, Dennis 4.65 mil
So wouldnt that make him the highest paid player, as a reliever no less
i think that number includes his option, so probably cut it in half.
You are correct Dark, altogether the deal is for 6.75 Mil for the 2021 season with an option for 2022
I would imagine that you are right. Usually tho the guarantee includes the the by out on the option. So say 6 mil for 21, 750k buyout of 6 mil 22 option for a 6.75 guarantee.
Quite a big deal for a guy with just average K/BB rates (although he did issue four intentional walks so that does him a bit of a disservice by making his control look worse than it actually is.)