The ignorant discourse around Geno Suarez

[Seattle or Bust]

I'm growing pretty tired around this sentiment that the M's somehow made a massive mistake by letting Geno go when they felt he was falling off.

I often see lazy comments by media members pointing to the Geno trade as one of the reasons why the M's front office is incompetent. They point to his overall numbers that are extremely skewed by an MVP-level second half to support their point which is just silly and doesn't look at any context whatsoever. Now, I don't disagree that for the most part they are incompetent... but the Geno situation is not a sign of their incompetency.

The Mariners DFA'd Ty France on July 23rd 2024.

On July 23rd Geno was the 11th worst hitter in baseball according to Fangraphs. He was slashing .212/.293/.363/.656. On July 1st, he was the 2nd worst hitter in baseball. In the Months of May and June Geno put up .505 and .576 OPS's... he struck out 58 times and hit just 4 bombs over that time.

Conversely, Ty France was the 35th worst hitter in baseball on the date he was DFA'd slashing .223/.312/.350/.662... France was coming off of months of .557 and .485 OPS when he was DFA'd.

Now... one major difference between the 2 is that France was hitting in the worst park factor park in baseball and Geno was hitting in what ended up being the no.1 offense in baseball and 2nd easiest park to hit at in baseball. Who knows if Geno's numbers would have been even worse hitting in Seattle? One thing is for sure... anyone who believes that Geno puts up anywhere near the numbers he put up in the 2nd half for AZ in an M's uniform is delusional.

From where I sit, if the M's were willing to DFA France... there's no reason to believe that Geno wouldn't have been on the chopping block alongside him. Yes, Geno was still playing a decent 3B defensively... but he was also making a shit ton of money to hit horrifically. The M's very well could have DFA'd him alongside France... yet nobody talks about just how bad Geno was for the first 3.5 months of the season... it was AWFUL.

[Juliooooo]

The real problem with the Suarez trade was they did it to save money and cut down on strikeouts. They ended up spending that money on Polonco and Urias who were just as bad, and they still lead the league in strikeouts.

They shuffled the deck a bit and just ended up with a worse hand.

[Donn Beach]

The issue wasn't trading suarez, the issue is what to do next.

[Seattle or Bust]

The real problem with the Suarez trade was they did it to save money and cut down on strikeouts. They ended up spending that money on Polonco and Urias who were just as bad, and they still lead the league in strikeouts.

They shuffled the deck a bit and just ended up with a worse hand.

I agree.

But lets say they DFA Geno on July 1 which IMO was a very real possibility. The guy was slashing .196/.279/.312/.591 with a 30% K rate. Everyone and their mom would have been calling for Geno to be let go.

This insane discourse about Geno wouldn't have existed and everyone would be questioning why they didn't shore up the situation at 3B given Geno's clear signs of decline.

[Seattle or Bust]

The issue wasn't trading suarez, the issue is what to do next.

Sure. But that's not the point many people are making.

They're saying... "SEE! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TRADED GENO!" with the hindsight of a ludicrous second half.

It's lazy as shit.

[D-train]

The real problem with the Suarez trade was they did it to save money and cut down on strikeouts. They ended up spending that money on Polonco and Urias who were just as bad, and they still lead the league in strikeouts.

They shuffled the deck a bit and just ended up with a worse hand.

Exactly, not to mention they could have got back a cactus and a rattlesnake and it would have been a better return.

[DavidGee24]

Totally agree with this. Suarez was clearly declining in 2023 and we were lucky that when we got him he didn't fall apart like Winker did. It made sense to move on.

Would we have been better off with him in 2024 instead of Rojas? Without a doubt. But then again, he wouldn't have hit for us the way he did for the D-Bags and even if so, the way pitching is now it's hard to take a chance with someone reaching their 30s.