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Suzuki joining LA Angels
In his 15th Major League Baseball season, Kurt Suzuki will finally get to play for the home team.
The 2001 Baldwin High School graduate confirmed to The Maui News on Friday that he will play for the Los Angeles Angels in 2021 on a one-year deal worth $1.5 million.
“It was a huge factor in the decision-making,” Suzuki said from his home that is a 30- to 45-minute drive from Angel Stadium, depending on traffic. “We had another offer that was for a better amount of money, but I think at this time in my career taking precedent was being able to stay home. You don’t have to move the family, the kids have their friends, they get to spend the summer at home.”
Suzuki and Albert Pujols share the same agent and have grown close over the years, but have never played together. Pujols made a surprise appearance at Suzuki’s annual youth clinic on Maui in 2019.
“To be able to play with a firstballot Hall of Famer in Albert and a future potential first-ballot Hall of Famer in Mike Trout, it was a nobrainer,” Suzuki said.
It will be the fifth MLB organization he has played for, joining the Oakland Athletics, Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
The well-travelled veteran had two stints with Washington — he won the World Series with the Nationals in 2019 — and two stints with Oakland, which originally drafted him in 2004 in the second round out of Cal State Fullerton.
After five weeks of contact, “in the last week is when it really picked up and we had an offer and were going back and forth,” Suzuki said. “We ended up where we were and it just felt like the right choice, what we had to do for my family and I.”
Suzuki, 37, knows he is heading into a back-up gig for the first time in his career. He has thrived at the plate since moving into a catcher platoon plan for the last four seasons, since he moved to Atlanta in 2017.
“I’ve said ‘this is my last year’ multiple times now and it just feels like it never is, which is fine, but I kind of take it like every year is my last at this point in my career,” Suzuki said. “If an opportunity arises that I think is OK for my family like being able to live at home in my own house and sleep in my own bed, then we definitely would have to consider it.”
Suzuki said he took his physical with the Angels on Friday and the drive to the stadium was about 30 minutes, “no traffic. With a normal day it would probably be closer to 40, 45 minutes, but I mean that’s nothing really.”
Suzuki hit .270 with eight doubles, two home runs and 17 RBIs in 36 games for the Nationals in 2020 during the COVID-shortened 60-game season.
“I kind of want to go out with a normal setting,” Suzuki said. “I didn’t want COVID to be my last year. At the same time, we don’t really know firmly, concrete how this is going to play out, but I feel like we’re on the right track and everything is kind of going in the right direction. Trying to get everything back to normal during the season, 162 games and whatnot, so we’ll see. Definitely wanted to play a full season to get back to kind of some normalcy. If it is my last year, hope to end on a normal season.”
Said Suzuki: “I feel great, body feels good, I feel like I can still compete at the highest level and really be productive. Obviously, probably not for 162 games or 140 games that I used to play, but whenever my opportunity arises then I feel like it’s going to be good for sure.
“I’m going to be 38 years old at the end of the season, I’m not getting any younger … but I feel like if the need arises and I am called on to play more games than that, then I feel like I can do it.”
The move put a smile on the face of 7-year-old Kai Suzuki, who will reunite with Anthony Rendon, who signed with the Angels after the 2019 season. In Washington, Kai Suzuki and Rendon developed a close friendship.
“My middle one, Kai, he’s super excited because I mean obviously I played with Anthony (Rendon) in DC and (Kai) was able to get some quality time with Anthony, so he’s pretty excited about that,” Suzuki said. “They’re buds. He was saying, ‘I get to be with Anthony,’ so he’s pretty excited.”
That goes for the entire Suzuki family.
“They’re really excited, I know my wife’s excited that we don’t have to move,” Suzuki said. “It’s kind of a nice feeling because right now we’d probably be looking at flights, looking at places to stay and rent and all that kind of stuff, shipping things and all that.
“Now, to not have to do all that is a pretty good feeling. … Definitely a blessing to be able to get this opportunity. I’m definitely looking forward to it and I know my family is as well.”