Albert Suarez

Suarez is back in the big leagues for the first time since he made 18 relief appearances for the Giants in 2017. The Orioles signed him to a minor-league contract this past offseason after he pitched in the KBO from 2022 through 2023. Suarez was a groundball machine in Korea, generating grounders over 60 percent of the time. In three Triple-A appearances, Suarez struck out 17 batters and walked one in 15.1 innings. He continued to be stingy with free passes in his first start for the big club, striking out four with zero walks in 5.2 frames. Suarez sat at 96 mph with his fastball, which he threw over 62 percent of the time, while his upper-80s cutter was his go-to secondary pitch. The Orioles have established starters like Kyle Bradish and John Means who are working back from injury and Cade Povich is having significant success at Triple-A, but for the time being, Suarez appears to have earned a spot at the back of the rotation.

Suarez was a Rule 5 pick by Arizona, who plucked him from the Giants after he spent the past two seasons on the San Francisco-to-Sacramento shuttle bus. He was mostly used as a starter in Triple-A and the big leagues in 2016, but did a poor job missing bats at the big-league level. The Giants converted him to a full-time reliever last season, but he worked just over 40 innings across multiple levels while dealing with a sore shoulder for a good portion of the first half. He saw a nice jump in his strikeout rate while working in relief and will likely have a home in the Arizona bullpen since he must remain on the active roster in order for the club to keep him. His role will likely be to soak up low-leverage work while Arizona sees if there is anything more to this 27-year-old pitcher.

Suarez -- a career minor leaguer -- was called upon to serve as the Giants' fifth starter and long man throughout the 2016 season. In 22 appearances (12 starts) he put up pedestrian strikeout numbers (5.8 K/9) and a 4.34 ERA. He did a good job of keeping the Giants in games, consistently going five or six innings before giving way to the bullpen. Suarez relies on getting groundball outs with his sinker (47.9 percent groundball rate) while mixing three offspeed pitches. If the Giants elect to keep him on the major league roster, they will likely deploy him as their primary long reliever.