The campaign started months ago with mentions made by manager Scott Servais, his unofficial publicist, in pregame media sessions and postgame news conferences.
It ratcheted up a month ago when the plays made were growing in difficulty and importance, from outstanding to game-changing.
Ask anyone with the Seattle Mariners about postseason award consideration, they will immediately mention Eugenio Suarez and his defense.
"This guy is absolutely deserving of a Gold Glove this year," Servais said following a series sweep in Houston where Suarez made a series of brilliant plays in close games that were critical to victory. "He's been phenomenal. I believe the metrics back me up."
Coming into Thursday, the Mariners had played 136 games, with Suarez starting 135 games at third base. The first time he was out of the starting lineup was Tuesday in Cincinnati. And he still played the last few innings in the game, making him one of the few players to have played in every one of his team's games this season.
Per FanGraphs' overall defensive value metric, Suarez ranks first among AL third basemen with a 5.6 rating, with 0 being league average. He also leads AL third basemen in outs above average — MLB Statcast's range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved.
But in the volatile world of defensive metrics, Suarez has a minus-3 defensive runs saved, which is well below Matt Chapman's AL-best 10 runs saved.
"He absolutely should be a finalist for the Gold Glove," infield coach Perry Hill said. "It's not that there isn't other deserving players. But I can't think of anyone that has been better."
Suarez's reputation as a baseball player has long been one of a power hitter who smashes homers and swings and misses for strikeouts. It was well deserved. With his 31 homers last season, he had hit 30-plus homers in four of the last five seasons with the exception being the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
When the Mariners acquired him from the Reds just before the 2022 season, they knew they were getting a durable power hitter prone to the strikeout. But they weren't expecting to get a player who was so driven to improve in all facets of the game, specifically his defense.
"I always want to get better," Suarez said. "When I got here, I know Bone [Hill's nickname] was one of the best infield coaches in baseball. Why wouldn't I listen to him?"
After bouncing between shortstop and third base during his time in Detroit and Cincy, he has found consistency in one spot.
"I feel like I'm a real third baseman now," he said.
A day after the trade was made, Suarez was on the field at the Mariners complex in Peoria, Ariz., participating in the team's daily ground ball work, which is intense and extensive compared with other teams'.
Standing behind the infielders and watching the new third baseman intently and offering his teachings, Hill, a Yoda to MLB infielders, saw some inefficiencies with Suarez's fundamentals.
He crossed his feet on certain plays, which is something that Hill loathes. Suarez was also inconsistent with how he "funneled" the ball to his body and then got ready to throw.
"His footwork, we needed to clean that up a little bit too," Hill said. "He was a crosser. I just don't believe in crossing your feet when you throw. And it was getting the ball to the middle of his body and separating his elbows equally with his thumbs down."
Why was that so important?
"What that does is it automatically shortens your arm, which an infielder needs," Hill said. "It keeps your elbow up automatically and it keeps your hand on top of the ball automatically. So there's three things you never have to think about that are important to throw the ball straight. If you just funnel, thumbs down and I think that's been a big help for him."
It seemed so simple to Suarez. He's always had a strong arm, but at times was afraid to unleash it because of inaccuracy.
Having played eight years at the big league level, not all players would've been receptive to coaching or criticism. Why would they need to change?
But Hill delivers his message simply.
"If you just point it out, 'I think you can do better if I show you a way where you can throw the ball straight every time, would you be interested?' " Hill said. "If they don't say yes, I'd question them anyway. I'm not saying my way is always right. But I know that there's a way that you can almost guarantee the ball goes straight every time. He agreed to let me in initially, and then he saw that those little minor tweaks that we made really helped him."
It was about three or four days of work. Suarez embraced the changes, and it sped up the timeline to success. It became muscle memory.
With Hill's teaching, Suarez grew confident enough to throw without fear of mistake.
"My first couple of years at third base I'd get in trouble with my throwing because my arm [path] was different," Suarez said. "As soon as I got here, Bone helped me with that. I always try to make the same move to throw to first base, it doesn't matter what kind of ground ball. Thumbs down. Before I'd flip it, now I throw it as hard as I can."
It's evident on the slow bouncers to third where Suarez will field the ball on the run, with or without his glove, and fire to first base without hesitation.
The Mariners saw the improvement immediately. He had a solid year defensively in 2022 and has been even better in 2023.
"To be honest, my last two years have been my best," Suarez said. "This year, I think has been one of the best in my whole career. I've been working so hard for it. One of my goals is winning the Gold Glove, and I hope this year to win it."
He has the vote of the Mariners' Gold Glove-winning shortstop J.P. Crawford, who also benefited from Hill's instruction.
"He's been lockdown over there," Crawford said. "He's been working with Bone ever since he's gotten over here. And you can just tell his confidence is through the roof right now. He's making every play. He's making the hard ones look really easy. He definitely deserves to be in that conversation, for sure. He's been lights out over there."
The actual voting process includes each team's manager and up to six coaches from the staff voting on players not on their own team. There is also analytical influence in the process with the Society for American Baseball Research creating a specialized defensive formula — the SABR Defensive Index — which factors into 25% of the voting process.
Servais won't stop campaigning any time soon.
"The number of plays he makes on the back end, the plays on the slow roller, the plays in the hole, the feeds on the double plays, the accuracy of the throws across the diamond, his understanding of the internal clock that he has with the speed of the base runner, it's awesome," Servais said. "You put really good fundamentals with a guy who's willing to work and be coachable, you see what he's done. I don't see why he wouldn't win the Gold Glove. It's been that good."
