It was spring training in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Jarlin Susana walked into the dugout and toward a conversation that would shift his future. Susana, a pitcher in the minors for the Washington Nationals, wasn’t there to discuss his fastball or hash out tweaks to his mechanics. He was there for a frank talk with Eddie Longosz, who had been promoted in November to oversee Washington’s player development.
Jarlin Susana is tapping into his full potential. All it took was trust.
On the field, no one has ever doubted Jarlin Susana’s ability. But to reach his full potential, both the pitcher and his organization needed to believe they were committed to the same goal.
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Longosz already knew Susana, the pitcher. Now he wanted to know Susana, the person. Longosz was trying to build relationships with international players, something he didn’t do much in his previous role as director of scouting operations. That included a relationship with Susana, a 6-foot-6 right-hander from the Dominican Republic who was acquired in the Juan Soto trade.
So Longosz, Susana and Nationals third base coach Ricky Gutierrez gathered together. They had a talk about trust.
“I basically just said: ‘Look, man, I don’t know you. You don’t know me,’” Longosz said. “‘I know trust is earned and you have to work toward it, but I’m going to gain your trust, and you’re going to gain my trust.’”
On the field, no one has doubted Susana’s ability. Coaches — and Susana himself — have described his talent as a God-given gift. His fastball velocities look like someone shuffling between radio stations. His curveball drops as if it is being pulled by a magnet under home plate. But to reach his full potential, both parties needed to believe they were committed to the same goal.
“Giving me the talk that they know that I’m capable of a lot of big things in the future in the big leagues, but the biggest thing that needed to come first is focus,” Susana said through his teammate, catcher Maxwell Romero Jr. “Explaining how things, if they don’t work out, it’s because you didn’t put your focus into the right things.”
After a rocky start this season, Susana was promoted to high Class A Wilmington following a six-game stretch of dominance at low Class A Fredericksburg. In his past 16 starts, Susana has a 2.79 ERA. Opponents are hitting .195 against him. He has climbed into some end-of-season prospect rankings.
Gutierrez could sense Susana was listening intently during that spring training meeting, taking it all in. Eventually, Longosz pointed toward the empty field. He asked Susana whether he wanted to play in the big leagues one day. Susana said yes before turning to Gutierrez and saying, “I want to be where you’re at.”
“As far as Latin players, that’s their biggest thing — trust,” Gutierrez said. “And once they find someone or people that they can trust, I think they can let their guard down and just be themselves.”
‘I didn’t know who to trust’
Fast-forward to a summer day in Delaware. Susana had moved up to the Wilmington Blue Rocks. He was far from West Palm Beach, rising in the minors, still focused on Washington and his future. But on this August day, he stood against the dugout railing and, for nearly two minutes, lauded Justin Lord, the pitching coach of the Fredericksburg Nationals who helped him get here.
“The love and confidence that he would give me, honestly, I feel like it could get anybody to the big leagues very quickly,” said Susana, who called Lord a father figure.
How much time, then, did it take for Susana and Lord to build that relationship?
“Ahhh,” Susana looked down before a grin formed on his face. Then he started to laugh from his belly. “Mucho. Mucho.” Romero, his teammate, laughed next to him: “A lot. A lot.”
Susana was nervous in 2023, his first full season in affiliated baseball. He had never pitched in front of 5,000 people before, and he didn’t want to fail. He was still learning who he was. Lord wanted Susana to reframe his identity: from a hard-throwing pitcher to one with a more complete arsenal — who happened to throw hard.
But Susana couldn’t understand, in his words, why Lord was “always pissed at me.” He saw Lord as stern, while Susana describes himself as easygoing. Just two different people. So Susana opted to do things on his own.
“I didn’t understand last year how much Lordy really wanted to help me,” Susana said. “Obviously, with a pitching coach you want to listen, but I didn’t know who to trust at that moment.”
His focus was also on his family at home. And he admits he didn’t train in the run-up to the 2023 season as he should have. So he changed his diet this past offseason. (He misses pizza and dumplings the most.) He started running and worked to improve his agility.
Lord noticed a difference in the spring. Susana approached his throwing program with a plan. He appeared more focused and controlled, and his bullpen sessions improved. But by mid-May, Susana had a 8.06 ERA. Then came another conversation among Lord, Fredericksburg Manager Jake Lowery and Fredericksburg development coach Carmelo Jaime before a start in late May. The gist: Make the leap.
“We don’t want you to be in low A for three seasons,” Lowery said. “Like, that’s not you. That’s not what this organization wants. That’s not what Mike Rizzo wants. Like, we want you to dominate and get out of here. It was honestly, like, one of those talks where he took it to heart.”
In his first start that followed, Susana gave up six runs in four innings. But Lord saw improvements. And his next six outings: 30 innings, 13 hits, two earned runs, 11 walks and 49 strikeouts. Susana trusted his breaking ball. And by pitching to contact, his strikeouts went up.
Between his starts, he put in the work. He tried to get a better feel for his pitches. His bullpen sessions grew longer. He implemented drills to repeat his delivery and strengthen his shoulder.
Less than two months later, Lord and Lowery sat Susana down in the dugout for another chat. He had been promoted to Wilmington. For the past few seasons, Susana had watched his teammates leave. It served as motivation. He always wanted to be next. And when it was finally his turn, he shed a few tears.
“Sometimes you got to let guys get to a point where they’re at a breaking point,” Lord said. “That’s where they listen the most. … And I think that he had to get to that point to where he was willing to, whatever we had for him, he wanted it. And he got his season and possibly his career turned around.”
Thinking like a big leaguer
It didn’t take long for Susana to warm to Romero, his “big brother,” whom he trusted enough to help translate and unpack his time with the organization. Romero caught Susana in 2022 when he was first acquired in the Soto deal. So in spring 2023, Susana wanted Romero to catch his bullpen sessions at Fredericksburg practice. Romero was scheduled to work with Wilmington’s pitchers. Susana panicked. The same thing happened this past spring.
“He’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to need you to go to low A,’” Romero said. “And I’m like: ‘That’s not how that works. We can’t just change teams.’ He goes: ‘No, no, no. Like, I’m serious. There’s no way I’m doing this.’ I’m like, ‘I love you, but you’re going to have to do it or start throwing 110 and get sent up to high A.’”
Susana’s maturity is evident now. Romero sees a pitcher who isn’t reliant on just his fastball anymore, who trusts his catchers with pitch selection and has a plan of attack for every hitter.
“He’s starting to think like a big leaguer,” Romero said. “He’s starting to act like one and carry himself like one. … That’s the biggest thing about pro ball: being able to carry yourself like where you want to be.”
Opinions vary on what role — starter or reliever — Susana can fill in the majors. But he’s a starter for now. And at 20, he has ample room to grow.
In his last start of August, Susana walked out of the dugout in Wilmington with his top three buttons undone. He flashed a peace sign to a crowd that had gathered along the right field line and got to work.
Toward the end of his warmup, he grimaced. A curveball didn’t break the way he’d hoped. He shook his head, wagged his finger, then held his arm up to emphasize his arm slot. Then he threw another that popped into catcher Onix Vega’s glove. He let out a “Whoo!” and danced on his tiptoes.
A few hours later, Susana was in a jam in the fifth inning. He already had nine strikeouts but had allowed a run that frame and was in danger of surrendering another.
The old Susana might have thrown a fastball. But the new Susana floated a backdoor curveball to get his 10th strikeout, a career high. He two-stepped off the mound, and right before he walked into the dugout, he repeated the umpire’s strikeout signal with his arms.
“Honestly, I’m just competing to be the best player in this organization, the best pitcher in the organization,” Susana said. “Soon to be, hopefully, the best pitcher in major league baseball.”
