The Cincinnati Reds haven’t officially called up Eugenio Suarez at the time this post has gone live, but it’s the expected move after Zack Cozart left the game on Wednesday afternoon with a knee injury.
When Zack Cozart went down on the field yesterday it was painful to watch. Aside from how the play looked, Cozart was in the middle of what has easily been his best season offensively and he was his same old self on the defensive side of things. As I type this there still hasn’t been an announcement on the extent of the injury for Cozart, but it didn’t look good. If there is any sort of silver lining to the Reds having yet ANOTHER injury, it’s that the team has a guy in Triple-A performing well at the position that is needed.
Eugenio Suarez was one of the big acquisitions over the winter. He was the key player received for Alfredo Simon in the Detroit Tigers trade over the winter. Suarez spent half of the 2014 season in the big leagues with the Tigers after they lost two of their shortstops in the season and he was forced into duty, perhaps a little earlier than he was ready for. The Venezuela native held his own though, hitting .242/.316/.336 and was an average defender in the field.
Despite performing better in 2014 at the big league level than Zack Cozart did, the Reds started in the first week of spring training that there was no competition between the two players and Cozart had the job. Suarez headed to Louisville to begin the season and he got out to a slow start, hitting just .213/.289/.387 in April, but he hit for power, drew walks and had a low strikeout rate – signs that he was just running into some bad luck and a turnaround was coming.
That turnaround came quickly in May and the shortstop has hit .293/.393/.488 with 19 walks and 26 strikeouts in 150 plate appearances ever since. Suarez has nine doubles, two triples and eight home runs on the season, with his eight home runs tied for third most in the league and just one behind the leaders. He’s one of only two players under the age of 25 in the top 20 of the league in home runs.
The 23-year-old seems ready to step in with the bat. He’s got a good approach at the plate, understands the strikezone and can use the entire field. He’s got pull tendencies on groundballs, but when the ball goes into the air he sprays the ball from line to line.
Offensively, Suarez should step in and perform. Defensively is where Reds fans may see a bit of a difference between Cozart and the new guy. That’s more due to how good Cozart is instead of any issues defensively with Suarez. Cozart is a gold glove caliber shortstop that can make the routine and highlight reel play. Suarez is a big league caliber shortstop, but he’s closer to the average shortstop defensively. He’s made 11 errors this season for Louisville with a .956 fielding percentage. Some scouts believe he could be an above-average defender in the future if he eliminates some of the errors, but even at this stage of his career he will be a big league quality defender.
It’s never good to see players get injured, especially when the injuries seem to be serious ones as the one to Cozart. The Reds find themselves in a position though that they have a player ready to step in immediately and fill the position. He’s probably a little better offensively than defensively at this point in time, but he should be roughly average on both sides with a chance to be above-average on the offensive side of things for a shortstop right now.