On November 19, 2006, Alfonso Soriano signed the 5th-largest contract in Major League History (to that point, by total dollars). Coming off a season in which the Fonz hit .277/.351/.560 and joined the 40/40 club, the deal looked like a pretty good sized overpay, but the cost of doing business with a premier free agent (and no mistake, averaging 36 homers and 41 doubles a year to that point in your career is valuable no matter how few walks you might draw). I'm not sure anyone thought he'd live up to that contract the day it was signed, but he'd be valuable nonetheless…
At first, the contract did not look all that terrible. In 2007, Soriano would have long dry-spells where he'd swing at pitches that hadn't even been thrown yet, or pick off attempts to first. Other weeks, though, he'd single-handedly win you 2 or 3 games. He was a boom or bust player, with just enough booms to live by.
Then, 2008 happened and everything (sort-of) changed.
Soriano lost another step to another injury. The hop that was endearing to some at first quickly became "how could you not catch that fly ball?" Soriano missed 53 games, and while his numbers were essentially unchanged, people started railing on the leftfielder. It didn't help that he now made 14 million, and was about to make 17.
2009 was, simply, a disaster. Soriano missed another 45 games and played the rest of the season hurt. His numbers plummeted to .241/.303/.423 off of a .279 BABIP. The times were rare that anyone did anything but boo Soriano.
After 2009, though, Soriano has quietly been pretty productive. Even his 2011 season (.244/.289/.469) wasn't a killer (if not exactly what you want from your LF). I can't begrudge anyone for signing the contract that's put in front of them; take the money out of it and Soriano has been a pretty good leftfielder for the past 6 years, with some definite bumps in the road.
Offense
Soriano is what you would call a "free swinger." He strikes out a lot, and doesn't walk a lot (premium analysis from the new guy). Most of his offensive value is derived from his huge ISO numbers: he was 6th in the league out of qualified leftfielders, and that was the primary driver of his .350 wOBA last year (good for 11th out of qualified LF). A 7.2% walk rate isn't pretty, but keep in mind the league average last year was only 8.0% and he still exceeded the league average in OBP last year (though it was essentially a tie).
To get a better idea of how much Soriano hates to leave the bat on his shoulder, consider the fact that he swung at 36.6% of pitches out of the zone last year, according to PITCH f/x. That was 7.6% more than the league average and 7.3% LESS than his percentage of pitches he swung at outside the zone last year. Predictably, he does not make contact with those pitches and never has; his contact rates are poor even looking at only pitches in the zone. Soriano averages 13.9% swinging strikes in his career; that's 7th most in baseball, along luminaries such as Delmon Young and Josh Hamilton.
As Soriano ages, his speed has regressed considerably, and that part of his game has essentially vanished, but an encouraging trend is his relatively static BABIP. As his speed regresses, you'd expect his BABIP to fall too; it hasn't, and that's most likely because Soriano isn't getting cheap hits (and never really was). As long as Soriano's power continues to hold up (and his HR/FB% rate was pretty high last year, something to look at), Soriano should keep most of his value.
Defense
Soriano's defense is the subject of a ton of debate. I can physically see why people hate Soriano's defense in left. He looks slow, and his stride has never been elegant even when he was very fast. He also does that weird hop thing from time to time. However, Soriano has a perfectly average arm at this point, and UZR has loved his outfield range forever (cue the UZR is bullshit chants). I'm not sure how dWAR is measured, but I also am pretty dubious that Darwin Barney is Brooks Robinson reincarnate so I'm inclined to think that it's a ways off in it's estimate of Soriano. I think the truth is that Soriano is a perfectly average defender and that Sveum (or whoever did defensive alignments in 2012) is a very good manager. That being said, seeing Soriano in 2 years in left is almost certainly going to remind me of Barry Bonds (without the offense, unfortunately).
Summary
Soriano has value to a lot of teams, including the Cubs. That contract that Hendry gave to him (and let's not forget that Soriano was a part of two divisional champions in the beginning of that contract) is a sunk cost; we can only recoup whatever we don't eat in a trade. If you forget about the contract and market Soriano as a 2/$10 guy, he has a good chunk or surplus value.
Please forward this article to the Phillies.
Comments
THE REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING!!
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WaLi77Quote Reply
@ WaLi77:
Should be fixed now.
dmick89Quote Reply
Let me know of any other issues you find (use the forum so I can keep track of it).
dmick89Quote Reply
404 error on the previous thread page
Suburban kidQuote Reply
WaLi77 wrote:
False
Suburban kidQuote Reply
just testing the “Attach a file” button
Suburban kidQuote Reply
You can also upload files to comments. All we ask is that you don’t upload every damn file you have. (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
Did we lose all the old comments?
joshQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Awesome feature! Can you upload all your Grateful Dead music in a comment so I can download it?
WaLiQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I would, but I can’t. I click on the link to complaints (below) and when I get to the thread it says I can’t reply to the topic.
WaLiQuote Reply
That injury early in his Cubs career really changed his future. I was more willing to accept he was an above average fielder prior to that because he did have that speed and was turning balls into outs that other left fielders wouldn’t have gotten to. Plus, the arm. Wow. With his lack of speed now and declining arm strength, I’m much less likely to believe he’s still an above average fielder as UZR suggests.
I love defensive stats. I think most of the time they’re right on, but I’m not sure they’re anywhere in the zip code when it comes to Soriano. I do think you’re right that the positioning helped out last year (same with Castro and Barney), but I still cringe anytime a ball is hit in that direction (left side of the field). And imagine what it will be like if Josh Vitters gets an extended look at that position.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
Works OK for me. Anyone else having this problem?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
(dying laughing) that would take forever. Literally! I have about 16-20 GB of the Dead on my phone alone.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ josh:
Just the last 10 days or so. Same with the forum. I backed up this site about 10 days ago and transferred the posts, comments, users and forum stuff to a new install and started from there. I probably should have done that at the end, but I really though I’d have it done in a day or two. I figure we still have 123K plus comments so missing a thousand or so isn’t a big deal. Sorry for those who started a forum post and that being lost. I briefly looked into a way to bring that over, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth the potential FAIL it would cause.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
Are all of the forum threads that way? For others too?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Yep.
WaLiQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
On a serious note, want to do a “tape trade”? I can mail you what I have on an external HD (is 250 GB enough?) and you can add to your collection whatever you think might be missing and then you can mail back your collection. I’ll pay for shipping both ways.
WaLiQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
I’ll think I’ll store backups of all my important work here, you know, OV comment threads will be my personal cloud storage facility.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
oh okay. No bid deal.
joshQuote Reply
I also can’t reply to the Complaints topic.
joshQuote Reply
Nor can I create a new topic in the forum.
joshQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Actually I can see it if I navigate it to it from this tab.
It’s the old tab that is open on my machine from before the switcheroo that didn’t like it when I refreshed the page.
so, never mind.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Can you guys logout and login again to see if that works?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
Also at 1 MB per file, 2 files max per comment, assuming you could split all your collection into 1 MB files and that you have about 100 GB of Dead, you could give me your collection in about 50,000 posts. If it takes a minute per post to do this, you could do it in about 35 days working 24/7 to do it. I’d then have to compile. So while it wouldn’t take literally forever, it would take a long time 😉
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
Yeah, mine are stored on a number of flash drives so I’d like to get those back, but I’m definitely wanting to do this. Can we talk more about this after Christmas? Got too much shit to mail right now and too much shit coming in the mail. (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Negative Ghost Rider, didn’t work.
WaLiQuote Reply
So, is this where we post our classical music as well?
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
Pretty sneaky not letting us comment in the Complaints forum, bossman.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
Only if it’s legally sourced and features the best composers and orchestras.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
It’s mostly just me playing classical songs on a kazoo or pan flute.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
I like how the comment count shows up at the top of the post again. Missed that feature with the last skin. Will the pound signs be returning next to the posts for easy navigation?
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
Nevermind, I’m kinda dumb. I clicked the date and time line instead.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
I’m going to uninstall and re-install bbpress to see if that does anything.
dmick89Quote Reply
I think it works now though I’m going to have to do some styling. Can you guys check it out for me?
dmick89Quote Reply
.@ dmick89:
I just posted on the Complaints forum successfully
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
WenningtonsGorillaCockQuote Reply
Image posts aren’t working
WenningtonsGorillaCockQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
Thanks.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WenningtonsGorillaCock:
I’ll update that in the next hour or so. Thanks for pointing it out.
dmick89Quote Reply
Testing youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSFEomvkAPQ
WaLiQuote Reply
WaLiQuote Reply
Can someone try an image now?
dmick89Quote Reply
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
@ mikeakaleroy:
I like the one from Alderaan, myself.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/dodger-are-listening-to-offers-for-andre-ethier.html
dmick89Quote Reply
Don’t tell me what to do.
Suburban kidQuote Reply