MLBPA stunningly excludes Orioles fan favorite from Players Choice award

When the last out was recorded for the 2024 regular season, all statistics to be considered for the end of season awards were final. The MLBPA has announced its finalists for the Players Choice awards and Orioles fans will notice a glaring mistake that was made. Albert Suárez is not a finalist for Comeback Player of the Year.

The Players Choice awards are always held in high regard by the winners because these awards are voted on by their peers, people who truly understand what it takes to win them. However, the players are human and can succumb to biases they have developed through personal relationships. Understanding that I also have bias being an Orioles fan, it is easy to see how Suárez is arguably the most deserving.

Previous winners of the Comeback Player award have traditionally come back from either injury/illness or been star players who returned to prominence after underperforming. White Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet did neither this season. He did have elbow surgery in 2022 but he returned from that in 2023. Crochet had been solid for them out of the bullpen before the surgery but this season, his first as a starter, was his coming out party. If there were a breakout player award Crochet would certainly be a contender but he doesn’t seem to have the “comeback” credentials this season.

Boston Red Sox outfielder Tyler O’Neill is another finalist with weak credentials. He’s been tormented by relatively minor injuries throughout his big league career, but his “comeback” is based upon him having his second productive season after those nagging injuries. O’Neill had a breakout season in 2021 when he posted career bests in virtually every major offensive category. That production had been on a steep decline until this season when O’Neill hit 31 homers, but the rest of his numbers were marginal (.242 batting average, 18 doubles, 61 RBI’s). His return to prominence doesn’t seem very prominent.

The remaining finalist, Chad Green, has a similar case to Crochet in that he had elbow surgery in 2022 and returned in 2023. Green was only able to return for September of 2023 and he struggled. He returned to form in 2024 and was a very valuable arm at the back end of the Blue Jays bullpen that garnered some trade interest at the deadline. As good as Green’s season was, his status as a “comeback” player comes with a loose definition of the term.

None of the 3 MLBPA Comeback Player of the year finalists have as strong a case as Albert Suarez

On the other hand, Albert Suárez meets the very definition of comeback since he literally came back to the major leagues. After appearing in 40 games for the San Francisco Giants in 2016-17, Suárez spent the next six seasons playing professional baseball in three different countries (Venezuela, Japan and Korea), working his way back to MLB. He finally came back in 2024 and was a major contributor to the Orioles, who finished with the third best record in the American League.

Suárez was by no means a star player this season but he was vital in the Orioles' success. In his surprising return to the majors, Suárez earned a spot in the starting rotation where he had an 18 scoreless innings streak and led baseball with eight scoreless starts. He was his teams best pitcher in the month of August as they were fighting for playoff seeding.

His season may not have been as good as Crochet or Green, but he was equally as important to his team and again is the only player mentioned here that actually came back this season. My definition of comeback might be more literal than the MLBPA but the line has to be drawn somewhere.