Eugenio Suárez could get perfect excuse to abandon possible Mariners reunion

On Monday, we wrote about how an Eugenio Suárez reunion with the Seattle Mariners was more unlikely than ever following Alex Bregman's decision to sign a five-year, $175 million contract with the Chicago Cubs. As MLB Network insider Jon Morosi previously advised last week on Seattle Sports, Suárez has been comfortable waiting all offseason to see how things play out and now Bregman has his deal, the two-time All-Star is in a stronger bargaining position.

This subsequently seems to be curtains for any hopes the Mariners have of bringing back the fan favorite to Seattle for the coming season, with their previously reported stance of only being prepared to offer him two years and around $30 million. Now more than ever, Suárez has improved his chances of more term and/or money as part of the fallout from Bregman going to Chicago.

According to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe (subscription required), one such team considering Suárez is the Boston Red Sox. At one point a fallback option in Beantown, the 34-year-old has now come to the forefront in light of losing out on the team's Plan A option of Bregman returning in 2026 to play at third base.

Seattle just doesn't agree with Eugenio Suárez

In fairness, as much as the Mariners would ideally love to see Suárez back in the Pacific Northwest, objectively speaking a move to Boston makes a lot more sense for him on an individual level. While he equalled a career high of 49 home runs and set a new personal best of 118 RBI in 2025, his productivity dropped dramatically following his trade back to Seattle.

In fact the former Cincinnati Red would have set personal career-worsts of a .189 batting average, .255 OBP and 35.9 percent strikeout rate if projected over an entire season, along with a .682 OPS which would have been his poorest since his rookie year in 2014. He was even worse at T-Mobile Park specifically, highlighted by a horrific .111 batting average and .479 OPS in 29 home games wearing a Mariners uniform.

T-Mobile Park is effectively a health hazard for Suárez at this point of his Major League career, whereas hitting regularly at Fenway Park could be just what the doctor ordered for him to regain his hitting mojo. It might only be a relatively small sample size of 10 career games and 44 plate appearances in Boston, but his .425 batting average, .800 slugging percentage and 1.277 OPS are the best of any ballpark he's hit at in 12 MLB seasons.

Mariners can't realistically compete with the Red Sox

Further, SoDo Mojo's Zachary Rymer wrote in December about how Suárez and Fenway Park makes for a dream collaboration, when considering the combination of the Green Monster with 193 of his career 325 home runs being hit to left field. Rymer wonderfully describes him as a drop-dead-pull hitter, and even if Statcast estimates fewer homers in Boston, the worst-case scenario trade-off is a multitude of doubles.

We appreciate it isn't all a bed of roses when it comes to Suárez and the Red Sox entering into an agreement when you look at his below-par defense, with Baseball Savant ranking him in the 26th percentile for Fielding Run Value. This would seem to allude to him being better utilized as a designated hitter, although as pointed out by Sean McAdam and Chris Cotillo of MassLive (subscription required), this is a position in Boston which might already have too many options.

Overall though, there's more to like than dislike when it comes to the possibility of Suárez suiting up in Boston, especially as the Red Sox continually lose out to more and more quality options in general including the likes of Ketel Marte and Jorge Polanco. (Sound familiar?) And no matter how painful it would be for Mariners fans, even they would acknowledge he'd be smarter to go somewhere that he will hit better and be paid more.