ANAHEIM – The Angels today announced the hiring of Kurt Suzuki as the Club’s field manager.
Suzuki, 42, becomes the Club’s full-time manager after spending the last three seasons as a Special Assistant to the General Manager. In that role, he aided the organization in all areas of baseball operations, including instruction with both the Major League club and minor league affiliates.
Suzuki retired as a player following the 2022 season with the Angels, after compiling a 16-year career which featured a 2014 American League All-Star selection with the Minnesota Twins and a 2019 World Series Championship as a member of the Washington Nationals. Suzuki spent the last two years of his career (2021-22) with the Angels, where he became the 16th player in MLB history to record 10,000 career putouts at catcher on April 20, 2021.
In his playing career, Suzuki tallied a .255 career average with 295 doubles, 143 home runs and 730 RBI in 1,635 Major League games. From his first full season in 2008 to his final year in 2022, he ranked second among MLB catchers in hits (1,314) and doubles (266), third in RBI (654), fourth in runs (544), and ninth in home runs (131) while behind the plate. Suzuki also ranked second in games caught (1,474), with a .994 fielding percentage and 158 runners caught stealing in that span.
Suzuki attended Henry Perrine Baldwin High School (Wailuku, HI) and Cal State Fullerton, located six miles from Angel Stadium. While at Fullerton, he led the Titans to a College World Series title in 2004, the fourth in CSUF history. Suzuki also won the Johnny Bench Award as the nation’s top collegiate catcher and the inaugural Brooks Wallace Award, given to the nation’s most outstanding college player.
A second-round draft pick by the Athletics in 2004, Suzuki made his Major League debut with the A’s on June 12, 2007. During his career, Suzuki played with the Athletics (2007-2012, 2013), Nationals (2012-2013, 2019-2020), Twins (2014-2016), Braves (2017-2018), and Angels (2021-2022).
A native of Wailuku, Hawaii, Suzuki will become the first Hawaiian-born full-time manager in Major League history.