The A's traded for left-hander José Suarez earlier this week, sending cash considerations to the Seattle Mariners. To clear space for him on the 40-man roster, the A's also had to designate righty Eduarniel Nuñez for assignment. 

On Friday, the A's announced that they have now traded Nuñez to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for some cash considerations of their own. 

The hard-throwing right-hander was part of the return that the A's received in the Mason Miller-Leo De Vries swap last season, and it was Nuñez that was called up to the big leagues immediately. He posted a 9.00 ERA (5.89 FIP) across eight innings of work, striking out 23.1% of hitters, while walking an unsustainably high 17.9%.

He began the 2026 season in Triple-A with the Las Vegas Aviators, but posted an 18.6% walk rate with a 5.56 ERA (4.38 FIP) over 11 1/3 innings. That earned him a demotion to Double-A Midland, where he continued to allow free passes. That ultimately led to his DFA on Thursday, and the trade on Friday. 

The walks have been a big issue for Nuñez throughout his minor-league career, and they're why he hasn't become a dominant relief pitcher in the majors yet — because he has the stuff to be a tremendously effective late-inning arm. 

His fastball sits at 98 and consistently touches triple digits, while his slider is in the upper 80's and is a swing-and-miss pitch with a 41.9% whiff rate. One look at his heat map on that pitch and you can understand why it's so lethal. 

As you can see, there aren't too many red patches for that slider inside of the strike zone. With that whiff rate, you'd think that his overall chase% (28.8%, roughly league average) would have been higher too. This graph seems to point out the duality of Nuñez. He can't seem to locate his pitches, and sometimes that doesn't even matter because of how good his stuff is. 

Last season in the majors he had a strike rate of 59% and needed 19.66 pitches per inning. This is a signal of deep counts, hitters fouling off pitches, and simply waiting him out. The Orioles will need to fix that before the stuff can play the way it's capable of.

Whether this change is mechanical or just the need for a functional third pitch, Nuñez still has the ceiling of a high-leverage arm. Baltimore will get their shot at him next.