The Angels have won their arbitration case against left-hander José Suarez, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The team filed at $925K with the lefty’s camp at $1.35MM, but he will make the lesser figure this year.
Suarez, 26, qualified for arbitration for the first time this offseason. He seemed to be establishing himself as a viable rotation piece over 2021 and 2022. He appeared in 45 games for the Angels in that time, 34 of them starts, logging 207 1/3 innings while allowing 3.86 earned runs per nine. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were all reasonably close to league averages.
But 2023 was undeniably a struggle. He allowed 26 earned runs in 24 1/3 innings to start the season, then landed on the injured list in early May due to a left shoulder strain. He didn’t return until mid-September and made five shorter appearances down the stretch. He had a 4.82 ERA in that brief return but his season-long ERA still finished at 8.29 thanks to his early struggles.
MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a salary of $1.1MM for 2024. That ended up being roughly the midpoint between the two filings figures, but arbiters have to pick one number or the other and can’t pick midpoints.
Since they opted for the team’s figure, it will result in some small short-term savings for the Halos while reducing the earning power for the southpaw. He is still slated for two more passes through the arbitration system and those future raises will be starting from a lower starting point. He will try to put the injury-marred season behind him and get back on track in 2024.
The Angels’ rotation mix should feature arms like Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning, Patrick Sandoval and Tyler Anderson, while Suarez will be battling for a back-end job with the like of Chase Silseth, Zach Plesac, Sam Bachman and others. Suarez is out of options so he’ll need to either earn a rotation job or be bumped to the bullpen, unless the Angels are willing to remove him from the 40-man roster altogether.
The club still has one more hearing to go, with outfielder Taylor Ward having filed at $4.8MM while the Angels filed at $4.3MM.
A guy with an 8+ E.R.A & negative W.A.R loses his arbitration case. What a surprise.
I’m surprised he filed. He seemed almost guaranteed to lose.
The arbitrator’s notes say, “29 other teams would love to have this guy. … In their minor league system.”
Wow
Backwards, that’s woW.
Upside down, it’s Mom.
Backwards and upside down, it’s moM.
Hard to justify a raise after last year. Hopefully he rebounds this year.
Considering the numbers he put up, it’s no wonder the Angels went to an arbiter, those are some ugly numbers…
@acoss13
Yeah, that K-BB% of 4.9% and FRA of 5.04 is pretty ugly. I know they won’t but good DFA candidate.
They could trade him he was one of the 6 angels that teams had interest in. Most likely were shopping him since he’s out of options
Good to see the team winning. These players are getting too greedy!
Can you imagine asking your boss for a raise, when you are clearly the company’s worst, least productive employee?
@mlb fan
Does this hypothetical person work for the Federal Government?
4.7% per GSA. Sub cola
To be blunt, Suarez was a nontender candidate after a godawful 2023. But I guess it doesn’t hurt to go to an arb hearing. You might always get lucky. Of course, you might also hear a lot of stuff about your bad numbers, too.
I’ll give him credit, certainly takes “confidence” to put it politely, to ask for a raise after sucking at your job last year…
This kid has got a set of cajones, I will give him that.
Well, he will get a raise from 750K to 925K. That’s the way the arb system works. He just won’t get as big a raise as he wanted. But as I said, he’s a little lucky to be in the system at all. The Angels must have thought about nontendering him after the disastrous 2023 season.
Kevin says it’s okay for men to like The 1975 but he’s said a lot of things over the years.
This time in English.
That’s right, Angels won. Don’t ever underestimate this stadium or this team.
Most underrated stadium and team and quality of life in MLB.
Says who? I’m not just taking your word on it. If Rome, Passan, Darling, Kurkjian etc were to say that, Id listen.
Says Alvo…duh
Almost all major league parks are pretty cool.
Except for Tampa Bay, Chicago White Sox and Oakland, it’s like having to worry about dating the ugliest super model. At some point, who cares? Sign me up.
This is a nickle and dime case. 400k they should have settled outside of this.
Walk into your boss’s office and ask for an extra 400 k and tell me what he or she says.
Yes! A victory for the Angels over the Devil
Couldn’t have been that long of a hearing
If only they can win on the field.
It’s good and bad for the Angels. Good in a sense he’s still cheap and good for pitching depth to have as a 7th to 10th guy. But bad that he’s out of options. Thus why he very easily could of been a DFA guy. I just don’t know where he fits in, when Anderson already is pretty locked in on being that swing pitching guy.
The Angels should have argued to have him transitioned to a hotdog vendor.
No one wins these hearings. It’s lose-lose.
Oh no those terrible billionaires cheating the ballplayers again!
Here is a list of everything Suarez did last year that not horrible…
Swinging Strike Pct.
Every other facet of his game he’ was terrible.
Maybe enright can fix him, we technically had a very bad bullpen coach for three years, and he left to be a bullpen coordinator peacefully elsewhere.
The two pro-team arbitration decisions so far suggest that the players should have come in with a number closer to Matt Swartz’s.