Fantasy Baseball 2016 > Rankings > Shortstops > Eugenio Suarez

#16 Eugenio Suarez Fantasy Predictions for 2016

Dude is a free swinger, man… another young windmill to come to the plate in the “strikeouts are OK” era. Eugenio Suarez is slated to be the starting third baseman for the Reds in 2016, filling in where Todd Frazier left off. In short, Suarez is an all-or-nothing type of player, similar to someone like Pedro Alvarez, Chris Carter, Evan Gattis and a bunch of other guys who strikeout a ton, but justify their paychecks with HR totals.
 
Having said that, we’re not even guaranteeing that Suarez will be as successful as those guys, but the Reds were willing to trade away Todd Frazier in favor of Suarez starting 2016 at third base. Suarez won’t even turn 25 until mid-July, so there’s plenty of time for him to earn his keep in the big leagues.
 
Last year, Suarez managed to hit .280 (somehow) while striking out 94 times in 97 games. He only drew 17 walks over that time, too, so we’ll slap the “buyer beware” tag on him. If you draft him, don’t expect him to carry your team. He only hit 13 HR (on pace for about 20-ish HR over a full season) which isn’t too shabby, but it’s not what you need out of your starting, fantasy third baseman.

Eugenio Suarez Fantasy Stats and Indicators

Year	Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2014	22	85	244	33	59	9	1	4	23	3	2	22	67	.242	.316	0.336	0.652
2015	23	97	372	42	104	19	2	13	48	4	1	17	94	.280	.315	0.446	0.761

Eugenio Suarez waved goodbye to Detroit and went to the Reds; then he waved goodbye to Todd Frazier and took over the 3rd base job.

Fantasy Statistical Indicators

*Averaging about 1 strikeout per game indicates that he could go into a devastating slump at any time.
*13 HR in 97 games, even at 5'11", 180 lbs, indicates you can expect 20+ HR out of him in a full season.
*23 years of age: don't expect too much, too soon. His real power potential will develop at 26-28 (hopefully patience at the plate show up, too).
*Free-swinging mentality at the plate sometimes ends up in a guy who fans himself right out of a starting spot when he shoudl be hitting his prime.
*.280 batting average shows that he's a good hitter when he hits the ball... but beware the previous season's .242 average which is typically more in-line with a big-strikeout guy.

The thing that scares us the most about Suarez is the fact that he hit .280 while striking out once per game. Still, though, it’s not unthinkable for guys to keep that pace while striking out a ton. Mike Trout strikes out once per game on average, yet he has a .304 career batting average. But he’s Mike Trout, plus he draws a lot of walks, too. A better comparison may be Pedro Alvarez: Alvarez strikes out a little more than once per game but he walks at roughly the same pace as Suarez, yet Alvarez has never hit over .256. One last factor is that Trout is 6’2”, 235; Alvarez is 6’3”, 250… Eugenio Suarez is 5’11”, 180.
 
After all this, that data shows us that Eugenio Suarez could definitely hit .260-.280 for you while also hitting 20-25 HR… although we expect he’ll start off pretty hot and end up exhausted in a full season right around August 1st. Go ahead and draft him as a pretty-solid backup, or even as a first-half DH, but be ready to jump ship around the dog days of summer.