Phillies not giving up on Ranger Suárez proving to be well worth their while originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
CINCINNATI – This is probably as good a time as any, now that Ranger Suárez is one of the hottest starting pitchers in baseball, to mention that the Phillies gave up on the Venezuelan lefthander shortly after signing him as an international free agent in 2012.
He was 16 years old. And they quickly concluded he didn’t have much future. . .as an outfielder. So, with nothing to lose, they decided to try him as a pitcher.
“We stuck him on the mound and the rest is history,” Phillies senior adviser, international scouting Sal Agostinelli said by phone from the Phillies academy in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday. “We (signed him for) his bat, but I give our scout credit. He said to me, ‘If this guy doesn’t hit enough, he can really, really pitch.’ We played him a couple games in the outfield and he just didn’t hit well. His bat was a little below average.
“He wound up being a pleasant surprise. He’s very athletic. He has a really loose arm. And he’s going to get better. He just gets better at everything he does. Every once in awhile you get lucky.”
Well, Hall of Fame executive Branch Rickey famously noted that luck is the residue of design. And Agostinelli was quick to mention Latin American coordinators Jesus Mendez and Carlos Salas for their roles in bringing Suárez into the organization.
Once in the right place at the right time, Suárez began working on his delivery. Finally, in his third year in the Venezuelan Summer League, everything began falling into place. He made 14 starts. His earned run average was 1.56. But those weren’t even his most impressive statistics.
He pitched 80.2 innings. He struck out 78. He held opponents to a .218 average. But those weren’t the most eye-popping, almost incomprehensible numbers, either. This was:
He walked just one batter all season. “Crazy,” Agostinelli said. Suárez’s days as an outfielder were officially over.
Monday night at Great American Ball Park, Suárez blanked the Reds on two singles for seven innings, extending his scoreless streak to 25 innings while lowering his ERA to 1.36 and his WHIP to 0.70. And he’s still just 28 years old.
“I liked playing the outfield because, growing up and playing with my friends, I was always an outfielder,” he said Tuesday through interpreter Diego D’Aniello. But when I went to the academy, they told me they wanted…