The Orioles enter this offseason with a bullpen that is thin on pitchers with successful experience as late-inning relievers, and pretty much completely empty on pitchers who’ve been closers before. At
last week’s GM meetings, Mike Elias acknowledged this in remarks to O’s reporters, saying, “Our plan A is to get somebody with closing experience.” Free agent options who fit this bill are not plentiful, so whoever the Orioles target, if they’re serious about doing it, they’re going to have to pay up to make it happen.
My pick for upgrading the back end of the bullpen is Robert Suarez, who hits the free agent market this winter after opting out of the remaining two years of his contract with the Padres. I will admit before going much farther that an amount of the appeal for Suarez to me stems from the fact that Suarez is the younger brother of current Oriole Albert Suárez. (Albert is listed officially with the accent in his last name but Robert is not.) Perhaps because I grew up at a time when Cal and Billy Ripken were both on the Orioles for many years running, I have always been enamored by getting brothers on the same team.
That said, Suarez would be interesting this offseason even if he had a different last name. The 34-year-old Suarez has been one of the better relievers in the game in the last couple of years. Like his brother Albert, he had to go overseas to really find the best version of himself. Robert Suarez broke out as a reliever in 2020 and 2021 with the Hanshin Tigers of Japanese baseball, performance that allowed him to jump to MLB. The Padres were impressed enough after one season that Suarez received a five-year, $46 million extension that granted Suarez an opt-out after the 2025 campaign.
Suarez has pitched well enough that it was easy to take the opt-out. Though the first year of the contract didn’t go great as Suarez missed time with injuries and was less effective when healthy, he’s been great for the past two seasons. That’s meant Suarez saving 76 games for San Diego while posting a 2.86 ERA and 0.973 WHIP. It’s not Zack Britton 46-for-46 near-perfection, but it’s very good pitching. Also, they actually used him in the postseason. Sorry. It’s still too soon for me too.
“Sign an experienced closer to replace the injured Félix Bautista” is not a plan that went well the last time Elias tried it. Craig Kimbrel was only one year older than Suarez will be in 2026. Suarez doesn’t come with the same red flags that Kimbrel had, particularly declining fastball velocity combined with career-long control issues. Suarez averaged 98.6mph on his fastballs in 2025 and he maintained an elite walk rate, giving out free passes to just 5.9% of batters compared to a league average of 8.4%. If you’re wondering, Bautista walked 16.2% this year and was walking 11% even when he was good.
This is not to say there are no possible red flags in Suarez’s profile. The same Statcast array with encouraging fastball velo and strike-throwing numbers throws a little cold water. For a hard-thrower, you’d expect him to blow batters away more often than he does. He struck out 28% of batters this season, which is a lot, to be sure. What it’s not is a lot compared to the other two high-end relievers on the market, or elite and sometimes-elite relievers generally. The other free agents are two guys who had very different experiences in New York this year, Edwin Díaz and Devin Williams.
Further on the red flags, Suarez is more of a fly ball pitcher. Batters tend to hit the ball hard off of him. It’s also generally a bad idea any time he throws something other than a fastball. Will all of these things add up to go worse for him at Oriole Park at Camden Yards? It’s been fine with the Padres; he allowed six homers in 69.2 innings.
Again using the Statcast data, maybe it’s not as bad as you’d think. Statcast park factor data puts Suarez with the same six home runs allowed with OPACY dimensions. Perhaps the risk factor there is in AL East road stadiums, as he would have been worse-off with Yankee Stadium dimensions impacting Yankees and (temporarily) Rays games. Getting hung up on this as a reason not to sign a guy would not be productive.
If the contract projections from either MLB Trade Rumors or FanGraphs are close to accurate, Suarez’s next contract will be in the ballpark of three years with a $48 million guarantee. That’s $16 million per year. Another projection from ESPN comes in much lighter at just two years and $25 million. If that’s really what will get Suarez signed, Elias should have already had the press conference. I’m inclined more towards the MLBTR/FG guesses.
That’s not a trivial expense to consider. Like other areas of the roster where upgrades are essential, the Orioles are just going to have to suck it up and pay if they really want to improve. Last offseason, Elias handed out almost the same 3/48 contract to Tyler O’Neill when O’Neill had a track record of getting hurt, stinking, or both. They got both in 2025.
Spending the same amount of money for a closer who has been good and isn’t giving off too many red flags that he will abruptly stop being good is an expense the Orioles can’t afford to avoid. Since they have to do this, they might as well unite the brothers.
