Daniel Susac's dream first MLB start is a ‘full circle moment' for his family originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — Daniel Susac‘s life changed in a ballroom at the Signia by Hilton in Orlando on Dec. 10. But he didn’t realize it at first.
The young catcher was eligible for the Rule 5 Draft and got selected fourth by the Minnesota Twins and then immediately dealt to the Giants. As the dust settled, Andrew Susac, who was 3,000 miles away from that ballroom, saw a Tweet about the trade.
The Rule 5 Draft is a bit of a niche event, and it doesn’t exactly get wall-to-wall coverage. Andrew called his younger brother to ask if he had in fact been traded to the Giants.
“I don’t know,” Daniel responded. “Did I?”
Andrew found himself in a unique position, and he realized he could go straight to the source. Oh, and that source happened to be Buster Posey.
Taken in the second round of the 2011 draft, Andrew reached the big leagues for the Giants three years later and backed up Posey as the now-president of baseball operations led the Giants to a third title. He made 52 appearances for his hometown team in 2015 before bouncing around the big leagues for a few years. The two catchers kept in touch, and when Andrew wanted to bring his family to a game last season, Posey hooked him up with field passes.
Months later, when he saw that Tweet, he knew who to contact.
“I texted Buster and said, ‘Is it true?'” Andrew recalled Thursday night as he leaned against a wall outside the clubhouse at Oracle Park. “He said, ‘Pending medicals.’ I was geeked out, man. I was fired up. (Daniel) has grown up in these tunnels. It’s just cool for him.”
Daniel is the youngest of the three Susac boys, and he was only 13 when the oldest made his debut for the Giants. On Thursday, it was Daniel who got that first start, and he made sure it was a memorable one.
The backup catcher singled on the first pitch he saw in the big leagues and then did it again on the second pitch he saw. He finished with three hits and a walk in a 7-2 win over the New York Mets, becoming the first Giant to reach base four times in his first career start since Kevin Frandsen — another hometown kid — in 2006.
The large Susac contingent soaked up every moment, even going viral when Andrew and Daniel’s young nephew got caught up in one of the celebrations and loudly voiced his displeasure. As family members left their seats late in the game, they were hugged by Oracle Park ushers, some of whom were surely around back when Andrew played. Andrew paused for a few seconds when asked to sum up the whole night.
“It’s elation. It’s unreal,” he told NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s 11 years younger than me so I just remember me and (our brother Matt) beating up on him and playing wiffle ball and it’s just a full circle moment for us. All the hard work has paid off. All the struggles and everything. It’s just a cool moment.”
It’s one that the family had to wait a few extra days for. Tony Vitello used the same nine position players over the first six games of the season, even starting Patrick Bailey on Wednesday when the Giants had a day game after a night game. The Susac parents and Daniel’s fiancée traveled to San Diego just in case he got a start, but the only action he saw was as a defensive replacement late in Wednesday’s loss.
The whole traveling party made the drive Thursday. Andrew backed up Posey long enough to know what was coming even before the lineup was officially announced. He saw lefty David Peterson set to start Thursday and figured his younger brother would finally get his shot.
Daniel planned to be aggressive, especially if he got a first-pitch fastball from Peterson. “I’m going to hammer it,” he told himself. Peterson instead threw a curve, but he roped it into right-center.
“I saw it mid-air and was like, ‘uh-oh.’ But I put a good swing on it,” Daniel said.
The history of the game is filled with nights like this, and often, it’s not the start of something long-lasting. The last Giant before Thursday to get hits in his first two at-bats was David Villar in 2022, and four years later, he’s playing in the Mexican League.
But this might be different. Susac was the 19th overall pick in the draft and was a well-regarded prospect before the A’s decided not to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. They felt they had good catching depth and worried that Susac’s .832 OPS in Triple-A last year was heavily inflated by his home ballpark in Las Vegas.
Because he’s a Rule 5 pick, the Giants must keep Susac on the roster all year or else they must offer him back to the A’s. That seemed to give him a leg up on the competition this spring, but Vitello insisted over and over again that he put that out of mind. Susac won the job over veteran Eric Haase fair and square.
Vitello recalled Thursday how Heliot Ramos and Luis Arraez talked Susac up in the spring. The veterans felt he could help this team, and if this is for real, or even somewhat for real, he should see plenty of starts against left-handed pitchers instead of the switch-hitting Bailey.
The Giants could also at some point call up Jesus Rodriguez or Haase and use Susac as a pinch-hitter, something they’re sorely lacking right now. Thursday was a night to wonder what’s coming next.
“Chappy said he made it look easy,” Vitello said of the debut.
In addition to reaching four times, Susac had one of the bigger defensive plays of the night, challenging a close 3-2 pitch in the sixth that flipped a Ryan Walker walk into a strikeout. Walker emphatically pointed back to his catcher after a replay on the scoreboard showed how close it was. Susac said later that the call was what he might tell his grandkids about some day as he recounts his debut.
“I didn’t even think I won it,” he said. “I was like, ‘Eh, it’s close, I don’t really want this runner on base right now so let’s see.’ And then I won it and I was excited. That was awesome.”
There were no hard feelings from home plate umpire Nestor Ceja over that one. He asked Susac in the ninth if he wanted his lineup card and then handed it over after the final pitch. Susac also tucked the ball in his pocket and then handed it to Blade Tidwell, who picked up a three-inning save in his Giants debut. When he got back to the clubhouse, he got Vitello’s lineup card, and that will go to his father.
There were three Susac boys in all. Matt, the middle child — and now, the most viral of the bunch — went into commercial real estate. Andrew last played in 2021 and now is back home, raising his family and giving lessons. He’s looking for kids who remind him of his youngest brother.
“He’s always been very gifted, obviously,” Andrew said. “But he’s got that edge. I talk about that a lot. The best players in my opinion have some sort of edge where they have that killer instinct in them. I think he has that.”
Perhaps it’s always been there. Or maybe it’s the result of a couple of years spent in the hallways at Oracle Park, watching his older brother and Posey, and wondering if that would be him one day.
“I definitely always envisioned it as a little kid,” Daniel said. “To actually live it out is pretty awesome. I probably went through this exact scenario so many times in the backyard with my brothers. It was a pretty fun one to get out of the way.”
