on Soriano, redux

the thing about being on the internet for three or four lifetimes is I can occasionally go back seven years and see what I said about silly things

I don’t think we’ll know for sure till the deal is done or he’s gone (given the A-Rod and Manny drama, it seems likely they’ll at least try moving him sometime in the ’10s),

YEP. I was beginning to think Soriano would be the guy who just never gives up his no-trade clause. I don’t he wanted to at the end, and I think it was underreported how Theo & Jed pretty much told him he’d be benched if he stayed any longer. That probably wouldn’t have gone over too well – manager is okay with developing but wants to win to show progress – so it’s best it didn’t happen no matter how much money it took.

The deal [is] a high percentage of the payroll and he probably won’t produce at a level where it’s an even bargain…but if he contributes towards a World Series win (or, gasp, multiple ones!), then everyone will be fine with whatever he’s getting paid. At least for a year, anyway.

multiple world series. NOPE.

The FanGraphs number WAR calculation was highly quoted as proof Soriano was actually worth his contract after all. Some of that is fair, some of that are contract prices going way up…and some of that is goofy UZR ratings giving Soriano much more credit for defense in his first five seasons with the Cubs than he should’ve gotten. You can only tell the story about Soriano getting much better the last two years if you acknowledge how bad he was to previously, and those Fangraph value numbers have Soriano as a better defender than hitter in his first two seasons. That’s not what I remember seeing.

Soriano had the misfortune to have his big dropoff season the same time the team did. He was hurting the team, but he wasn’t the only one and it took him until the last couple years to shed that. It was still an overly optimistic deal, made hoping they could pay a good player into being a great player, like a lot of Cubs free agency signings at that time.