GOODYEAR, Ariz. — When he thinks of Eugenio Suárez, the first thing that comes to mind for Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo is the silence.

“When he stands up in front of the room and has a conversation with the group, nobody responds and nobody talks but him,” Lovullo said. “You know that he’s commanding the room and has earned their respect. He did that on a few occasions. He said something — it was almost like he slammed the gavel down — and now we go execute it. It’s very motivating.”

When Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson thinks of Eugenio Suárez, he remembers the noise.

Suárez played for the Mariners in 2022 and 2023 and then got traded to the Diamondbacks heading into the 2024 season. Then at the trade deadline in 2025, the Mariners traded to get Suárez back. Due to a logistical coincidence, Suárez and the Mariners were both in Sacramento at the time of the trade.

So Suárez literally met the Mariners on the tarmac and boarded the Mariners’ team plane. The group went crazy as he stepped on board.

“When he came back to our team last year, the reception that he got on the airplane and some of the relationships he renewed, it was super impactful,” Wilson said. “I don’t know how to describe it other than that he’s an incredible human and an incredible player. Any team is lucky to have him.”

Suárez is beloved in every clubhouse that he has been a part of. In Seattle, he was the “good vibes” guy on a team that included superstars like Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh. In Arizona, Suárez was far-and-away the most experienced veteran position player in the clubhouse.

That’s the role that Suárez is stepping back into in Cincinnati. The 34-year-old has the opportunity to set the tone with his energy, and to take young guys like Elly De La Cruz, Noelvi Marte and Sal Stewart under his wing.

“I came here to help the team win games and be the best version of the Cincinnati Reds,” Suárez said. “I want to be one of the guys who helps the young kids be better on and off the field. It’s not just physical. It’s more about mentally. You have to be strong up here, and that helps you be your best version on the field.”

The Reds got better during the offseason, and Suárez was the biggest addition. But the team did lose a few of its best and most vocal veteran leaders from the 2025 team, including Nick Martinez, Brent Suter and Gavin Lux.

The longest-tenured Reds, including TJ Friedl, Tyler Stephenson and Hunter Greene, were rookies and were prospects during Eugenio Suárez’s first stint with the Reds. They know what he brings to the table. So do the guys who hadn’t met him until last Tuesday.

“When I think of him, I think of all of the good things I’ve heard about him as a person,” Spencer Steer said. “His ability to mesh well with the clubhouse, that’s what you hear about a guy like that. I’m excited to get to know the guy and have him around on a daily basis. The things you can learn from him and the questions you can ask him, those are the things that I think of. Then, obviously, you have a guy who can hit 50 homers.”

It helps that Suárez is a great guy, but the Reds brought him here primarily to hit. For years, going back to the end of Joey Votto’s prime in 2021, they’ve been missing that consistent slugging presence in the middle of their lineup. As a result, pitchers haven’t had to throw many strikes to Elly De La Cruz.

In 2025, the Reds had a lot of problems coming back late in games and winning games in extra innings. Big swings from Suárez in those moments will go a long way.

“Any time you can add 49 homers and over 100 RBIs, it’s a big deal,” Pagán said. “In those close games, it always seems to be one big swing or one play that decides the game. A guy who can leave the yard as many times as he does, you have a chance to win those close games more.”

Having Suárez in the lineup takes pressure off of De La Cruz, even when Suárez is cold. Last year, Terry Francona was mixing and matching in the cleanup spot all year. Because of what’s on the back of Suárez’s baseball card, Francona says he won’t have to move Suárez down in the lineup when Suárez is slumping.

Even when Suárez is in a slump, pitchers still worry about him. Because of Suárez’s proven elite raw power, pitchers will always have to think twice about throwing Suárez pitches over the middle of the plate.

“That’s a lot of thump,” Jose Trevino said. “I remember in one of my first spring trainings, I was facing the Reds. He hit a ball in Goodyear to right-center and it cleared the right-center berm. It was a missile. Woah. That’s pretty special. That guy has special pop.”

While Suárez is one of the best sluggers in MLB, he’s still a relatively one-dimensional hitter. There’s a reason why after hitting 49 homers in 2025, the Reds were able to land him on a one-year deal. In 2025, he hit .228 and got on base under 30% of the time. He’s one of the most strikeout-prone hitters in baseball. He’s also one of the streakiest hitter in MLB.

In 2021, his final year in Cincinnati before the Reds traded him, Suárez had the 19th-worst OPS in MLB among qualifying hitters. But then in 2022, with the Mariners, Suárez turned it around. He was solid during the first four months of the season, and he then exploded in August (.947 OPS) and September (.831 OPS).

Suárez took a step back in 2023, but in that down season he still had a terrific two-month stretch between July and August. He hit 14 of his 22 homers in 2023 after July 1.

Then in 2024, after joining the Diamondbacks, Suárez was bad through the first half of the season (.668 OPS). He started losing playing time. According to reports out of Arizona, the front office was considering the possibility of designating Suárez for assignment.

“I could see the game was weighing him down,” Lovullo said.

The manager called Suárez in for a meeting.

“I don’t want to have the next level of conversation with you,” Lovullo told him. “Have you gone through your checklist to make sure you’re as ready as you can possible be every single day? Do you have a routine? Is it a high-intensity routine?”

Lovullo felt like during afternoon workouts before games, Suárez was always trying to preserve energy for the games. He felt like Suárez was “methodically” going through his warmups. So they came up with a new seven-day workout routine where Suárez would do this every Monday, that every Tuesday, etc.

“The real turnaround for him was hitting off of the velocity machine and Traject,” Lovullo said.

Traject is a new-school, advanced pitching machine that replicates specific pitches of any pitcher in the game. Facing the Traject machine is as close to live at-bats as you can get.

“Once he started to catch up to the velocity, it was almost an instant turnaround,” Lovullo said. “From the time I had that conversation, within a week, I could see there was a lot of progress. He deserves all of the credit for trusting the information he had an applying it.”

In 2024, Suárez posted a 1.131 OPS in July. He wasn’t quite as hot in August (.782 OPS). But then in September, Suárez posted a 1.029 OPS. He hit 24 of his 30 homers in 2024 after July 1.

Lovullo said that you can tell when Suárez is on the verge of getting red hot.

“When he’s laying off of certain pitches, checking off of pitches that are undrivable, fouling off good two-strike pitches, that’s what I know good things are happening,” Lovullo said.

There was also a movement that Lovullo looked for. As he explains it, Lovullo gets into a batting stance and acts it out.

“He checks off his swing where it’s a yes, yes, yes and at the last second his entire body moves but his hands stay back (to take the pitch), Lovullo said. “When I see a yes, yes, no decision that late, I know good things are on the way.”

The momentum that Suárez generated during the second half of the 2024 season carried through the first half of the 2025 season as Suárez carried a .889 OPS and 31 homers into the All-Star game. He was a hot commodity at the deadline, and Wilson said the Mariners trading for Suárez gave the team a jolt.

“He has a big heart, and he wants to win,” Wilson said. “He’s the same guy every day. That’s his superpower. You can’t tell if he’s going well or he’s not going well. Baseball likes consistency, so people are just drawn to him. He’s just so consistent.”

During the second half of the season, Suárez really cooled off. After the All-Star break, he hit .196 with a .729 OPS and struck out nearly 1.5 times per game on average. His slump carried through the ALDS, where he hit .095 with one extra-base hit in the five-game series victory for the Mariners over the Tigers.

Suárez stayed steady, and he turned it around. He recorded a hit in every game of the seven-game ACLS against the Blue Jays. In Game 5, with the series tied at two games apiece, Suárez was the hero as he had a two-homer game in a 6-2 win. His grand slam in the bottom of the eighth was the difference.

The Blue Jays won the final two games of the series to advance to the World Series, but Suárez’s Game 5 will always be remembered in Seattle.

“He keeps fighting,” Wilson said. “He got to a really big moment for us in the playoffs and delivered in a big way. That’s because he keeps pushing on and doesn’t let (a slump) bother him”

The Reds hope that Suárez can help push the team over the top in that type of moment in the playoffs in 2026.

“He gives everybody a jolt,” Francona said. “Myself included. There’s certainly a presence in the lineup. There’s a presence with him and the way he carries himself.”