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Washington Nationals: Wander Suero experiment has succeeded

By Ross Shinberg

ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 16: Pitcher Wander Suero #51 of the Washington Nationals pitches against the Atlanta Braves at SunTrust Park on September 16, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia.(Photo by Kelly Kline/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 16: Pitcher Wander Suero #51 of the Washington Nationals pitches against the Atlanta Braves at SunTrust Park on September 16, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia.(Photo by Kelly Kline/Getty Images) /
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Washington Nationals reliever Wander Suero got his opportunity to pitch in the big leagues and hasn’t looked back. Luckily for the Nats, he’s here to stay.

The Washington Nationals threw a myriad of bullpen arms in the right field pen this season, and not many of them stuck. However, out of the pile of the dysfunction, Wander Suero has proven to be exceptional.

On July 31, the right-hander made his way back to the bigs after the club traded Brandon Kintzler. And it seems pretty safe to say that this time, Suero is here to stay.

Since his recall, Suero boasts a 2.96 ERA, 3.11 FIP, 27 percent strikeout rate and a sub-30 percent hard contact percentage in 24.1 innings. In the same timeframe, no reliever in baseball can match that combination of stats.

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In addition, only six relievers have logged more innings than Suero since July 31. But that is excluding Tampa Bay’s three “long relief” pitchers, who are actually starters in disguise.

With Suero, it’s easy to see how he’s progressed throughout the season. It appears that he did not get fazed by his many demotions and used his time at Triple-A to improve his game.

From his MLB debut on May 1st to his last outing prior to his final demotion on July 14th, Suero posted a 3.15 ERA, 4.11 FIP, 20.5% K rate, and a 40.4% hard-hit rate in 20 innings.

From the first half of his season to the second half, Suero sunk his FIP by an entire point, while upping his K-rate by 6.5 percentage points and cut his hard-hit rate in half.

Sure, 20 inning sample sizes are not sufficient enough to draw concrete conclusions, but it shows how Suero’s game improved as the season progressed.

Suero can attribute some success to his unwavering confidence in his curveball. In the first half of his campaign, he threw his curveball 15.7 percent of the time despite it having a negative pitch value according to Fangraphs.com.

The surface level stats support the low rating. Over the entire season, Suero’s curveball’s batting average against is .250, slugging against is .667, and wOBA against is .405. However, the predictive metrics on BaseballSavant.mlb.com tell a different story.

Suero’s xSLG and xWOBA are .456 and .303 respectively. The results of the pitches were not good, but his pitches were of high quality. In other words, Suero got unlucky early on in the season.

But he stayed the course, throwing his curveball the same 15.7%, and the pitch’s value went up since his recall after the trade deadline. He knew his stuff was good enough, he remained confident and now he’s reaping the rewards.

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Wander Suero breaking out bodes well for the future of the bullpen. It’s one less spot to fill after this year’s bullpen failed to find consistency resulting in lots of moving parts. The Nationals need stability which means Suero is here to stay.

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