Comments on: Alfonso Soriano Dislikes Slow Things

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:58:13 +0000

Fastball% is similar this year to his 05, where he hit 36 homers with an ok 268 average.

Other things that jump out: Transmission is completely correct, he’s less than half as effective against fastballs this year vs last. Throw in a huge drop against cutters, doubling his troubles against sliders, and changeup has gone from a positive pitch to a big negative. His woes seem to be less related to pitch type than something else.

HR/FB. At last years HR/FB, changing nothing else, he’d have 30 HR and be hitting 262 with those extra 10 hits (assuming they were outs). Not great but useable, and good enough for a “worst year”

Take out the mental aspects of the slump (desperation, lack of confidence) and you can probably add some more to that BA and he’s as good as ever.

Side Note – Each of the last two cubs seasons he’s had horrendous starts, did brief DL stints each year, then came out awesome. This year he didn’t have a late April DL stint.

By: Transmission

Transmission — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:21:45 +0000

R.J. – Look at Soriano’s results against the fastball by year, and his wFastball by year, and it shows that his performance has declined annually since 2005, and now has declined each month in 2009. The problem isn’t that he sees few fastballs, it’s that he is doing less and less with the ones he does see.

By: Zack

Zack — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:41:26 +0000

I traded Soriano and Jordan zimmermann for Jermaine dye and Joe nathan in early May and the rest is history. I’m in a 14 team 5×5 league and I’m in 1st place by 7 points.

By: Drew

Drew — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:01:17 +0000

Jones was always a lot better dude. Way better in the field, and in some years he could actually take a walk.

Jones is the 7th most valuable player since 2002, Soriano is in the 40’s (which is still decent).

http://www.fangraphs.com/careerleaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=6&min=1000

Plus Jones was good before ‘02. Don’t throw Andruw under the Soriano sh*t-bus just because he had one bad year last year.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:59:38 +0000

He is laying off pitches out of the zone which is a decent sign to the contrary here.

By: Slick

Slick — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:34:11 +0000

So trade him off your fantasy team if you can’t stand watching him struggle. Waiting for players to produce will ensure you finish out of the money. Last time I checked, this site provides fantasy info for fantasy teams. Not adivce for managers or players on they should handle their stars so your fantasy team starts performing better.

By: James

James — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:26:44 +0000

I traded Ortiz and Derosa for Soriano in april/may just cause I couldnt stand looking at Ortiz anymore. Soriano is FAR worse! Funny thing is though, since that deal my team has not lost a week and went from 11th to on the verge of taking first this week. With that said, sori did have 14 hrs and 32 rbis leading off, if he bats 6th and has a 2nd half as bad as the first then he sould be inline for bout 50 rbis considering there will be more men on base.

By: standuptriple

standuptriple — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:14:53 +0000

Yup, Sori doesn’t adjust. He’s always been content with his natural ability (and his stupid jump catches in LF). It such a shame. Maybe he and Andruw Jones can get together one day and imagine what kind of HOF-esque careers they could have had if they had just made more on an effort.

By: sixfourthree

sixfourthree — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:33:21 +0000

As a Yankees fan who watched Soriano at his whiffiest best in the playoffs I somehow forgot that and drafted him this year.

a) trade him for .50 on the dollar?
b) hold..how much worse can it get?

By: odbsol

odbsol — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:24:14 +0000

One would think that. But this has been going on since May, and based on history, is an on-going problem for him. I’m a Cubs fan and owner of Sori and have watched him struggle the last 2+ months and I honestly don’t think that he will adjust or he would’ve already. He should be working on taking those pitches to RF more often by making contact or just laying off but it looks like he still tries to pull them. I’m just guessing but that kind of attitude where he doesn’t think he has a problem and probably isn’t listening to his hitting coach(s) might be affecting the clubhouse since he is the highest paid player. Lou has gone out of his way to treat him with kid gloves leaving him (stupidly) at leadoff for way too long only dropping him in the order this past week. Sooner or later the guy has to be held accountable.