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Amidst all the hullabaloo surrounding Albert Pujols reaching 700 home runs and Aaron Judge’s pursuit of … the “American League home run record,” it would be easy to let the upcoming retirement of one of the greatest MLB players to come out of Hawaii go unnoticed.
I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Baldwin graduate Kurt Suzuki, a catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, announced last Tuesday that his playing career will be over when this season ends next week.
Even though his statistics are only a fraction of what he has brought to his teams the past 16 seasons, let’s start there.
Suzuki is tops among players born in Hawaii or who attended UH in the following offensive categories:
>> hits, with 1,420 (fellow Maui native Shane Victorino is second with 1,274)
>> home runs, with 143 (followed by Victorino with 108)
>> RBIs, with 729 (nearly 50% more than Victorino’s 489)
>> doubles, with 295 (Victorino has 231)
>> walks, with 387 (Victorino has 381)
Suzuki, who turns 39 next week, is also No. 1 in the compiler stats (games and at-bats), which has led to him being 12th among catchers all-time in putouts.
Among players with 100 or more at-bats, Victorino, a St. Anthony grad, is tops in batting average, runs scored, steals and triples, as well as leading all position players in the modern analytics fave “wins above replacement.” Saint Louis and HPU alum Benny Agbayani is No. 1 in on-base and slugging percentages, though he played far less than either Suzuki or Victorino.
Among pitchers, the discussion begins and ends with Kaiser grad Sid Fernandez, whose WAR tops even Victorino’s, 32.74-31.46.
Suzuki’s WAR is just short of 20, but while the stat takes into account defensive position when considering what “replacement level” is, it does not factor in how the wear and tear from decades of squatting can affect catchers’ ability to maintain their peak abilities on offense. For example, the catcher with the top career WAR is Hall of Famer Johnny Bench. He is tied for 83rd all time with should-be-HoFer Lou Whitaker with a WAR of 75.1, nearly four times Suzuki’s. Meanwhile, the top outfielder in WAR is Babe Ruth (also No. 1 among all players) with a WAR of 183.1, nearly six times fellow outfielder Victorino’s, and the top pitcher is Walter Johnson at 164.9, more than five times Fernandez’s.
Suzuki is a bit closer to Hall of Fame level catcher than Victorino and Fernandez are to the same level at their positions.
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As I said, above, though, Suzuki was about more than numbers. He never won a Gold Glove (Victorino has four of those, by the way), but he was respected for his defense, as well as his ability to call a game, his work ethic and his clubhouse presence. His deftness at working with young pitchers is the main reason he stuck around so long.
Mike Rizzo, the Washington Nationals executive who acquired Suzuki twice — via trade in 2012 and then via free agency after the 2018 season — said of Suzuki after trading for him: “He’s a guy that can really take that rotation together and get it going even better than it already is.”
That 2012 deadline deal — from the Oakland A’s for University of Hawaii alumnus David Freitas, also a catcher — altered the course of Suzuki’s career. Though he was brought in for his work behind the plate, manager Davey Johnson and hitting coach Rick Eckstein apparently saw some potential for Suzuki to contribute more from the batter’s box.
According to a September 2012 story in the Washington Post, they worked with the righty to shorten his swing.
“What we have really been doing is really take the effort out of the swing,” Suzuki told the Post at the time. “Just kind of be nice and easy, free and easy, which the less tension you have it is going to be a lot quicker.”
The difference in Suzuki’s offensive production was marked. Before the Nationals acquired him, he had 57 career home runs in 2,530 at-bats, a rate of just over 44 at-bats per homer. He has hit 86 in his 3,031 at-bats since, a rate of just over 35 at-bats per round-tripper. That’s a better than 20% improvement in his power.
He became an All-Star with the Minnesota Twins in 2014 and a few years later hit 19 homers in 81 games with the Atlanta Braves. Eighty-one games is exactly half a season. Projecting that to a full season is math even your average journalist can do.
The second time the Nats acquired Suzuki would prove pivotal for both the player and the franchise, as he helped Washington win the World Series in 2019.
The closer on that team was Sean Doolittle, who started his career in 2012 with the A’s. Suzuki caught Doolittle in his MLB debut. Doolittle told the Twin Cities Pioneer Press in 2014 about how Suzuki’s reputation for exhaustive preparation preceded him. Suzuki had since moved on to the All-Star Game host Twins and the two were reunited on the AL roster.
Doolittle joked at the time that if the veteran catcher had called for a knuckleball — a pitch the rookie had never thrown — during his debut, “I would try to figure out how to throw it in the middle of the inning because I would be convinced that if I could execute it, it would be the right pitch.”
Perhaps the best Kurt Suzuki story, though, one that illustrates both the level of respect his teammates had for him and his ability to communicate with players of all demeanors comes from pitcher Dallas Braden, whose major league career lasted from 2007 to 2011, all with the A’s, coinciding with Suzuki’s first five years in the bigs.
“He would say, ‘Hey, 209! (That was Braden’s nickname.) Get it together. What are you doing? Let’s go!’,” Braden told the LA Times before last season, describing their meetings on the mound. “One time he came out to deliver that message, and simultaneously hit me right in the crotch. … It was hilarious, and I remember after the inning, he came in and was like, ‘Is that what I gotta do every time?’”
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Take the numbers he’s put together and combine it with the context of playing catcher and what he has meant to the teams he’s played for and I think Suzuki ranks right up there with Victorino, Fernandez and Kolten Wong as the greatest baseball players to come out of Hawaii.
It will be exciting to see what’s next for Suzuki, who would be a natural as a coach — there’s a reason a third of current MLB managers are former catchers — but has also expressed a desire to spend more time with his wife and three kids (ages 11, 8 and 6).
Angels interim manager Phil Nevin, a fellow Cal State Fullerton alum, is certain Suzuki will be around the game beyond his coming retirement.
“He’s not going to be away from baseball, I can tell you that,” Nevin said last week. “He’s going to be a big part of it, whether he’s doing the same thing I’m doing or in the front office. He’s too good for this game.”
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