Entering 2009 I was high on Alfonso Soriano and thought he could return to big things. His walk rate made me cringe, but with his SLG at .560 in 2006 and 2007 before the injured 2008 season he was well worth the drag.
His Strikeout rate is up to 24.3% this year from a career rate of 21.9%. Although not a large jump he seems to be having trouble with fastballs, which used to be his big skill. He has had a career pitch value per 100 pitches of 1.95 on fastballs. He has now dropped to 0.85 this year and removed any value he had.
He's also seeing fastballs at the lowest rate in his career. Only 46% of the pitches he has seen were fastballs, which is the second lowest in the league to only Ryan Howard. The fastballs have turned into cutters (which he actually hits better than fastballs slightly) and sliders.
Soriano has trouble with any pitch that isn't a fastball or cutter so a drop in those means more pitches he has trouble handling. The real problem isn't so much the contact though as we saw the strikeout rate only went up slightly. The problem for the most part has been power. His ISO has gone from consistently in the .200-.280 range for 7 years now. This year he has been at .184 and has a career low HR/FB% of 11.4%.
Trying to determine a reason for power loss can be tough, but according to HitTrackerOnline he has 30% "Just Enough" homers. That is higher and the league average. So not only is his power down this year, but it might be possible to drop even more.
Injuries have not forced him to the DL this year, but he has been DTD a few times for knee soreness and also dislocating his pinkie in July. It's tough to explain the power loss on injuries that we know of. His worse 2 months were May, June and August with SLG of .396, .311 and .284 respectively. Both injuries came in late July and August and would only explain August.
In both April and July he was SLG near .600 and looked like the Soriano of before. This makes his 2010 value very tough to define. He has started to accumulate little injuries, but are these the only reason for his fall? Could pitchers finally realize that you stick to offspeed on Soriano and frustrate him.
I am avoiding Soriano in 2010 drafts at all costs unless he falls ridiculously late. I would like to know what everyone here thinks. Is Soriano done? How early would you draft him? Do you have him in a keeper league?
Excluding his 40/40 season and when he was 2b eligible, I've never been sold on soriano. His hot/cold streaks were never my cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteRegarding 2010, I won't take him, he's becoming another name in the pool.
I've long grouped the mediocre batting average guys with speed and power - Soriano, Beltran, Sizemore, etc - into one group. Their stats seem to fluctuate more than other top hitters. They go through hot/cold streaks that last for weeks or even months, drastically changing their ranking versus other hitters.
ReplyDeleteBecause of this I try very hard to draft these guys after down years when you can get them in the third round, and avoid them after up years when they go in the first or early second rounds. I tried to trade Soriano in my main keeper league based on his #19 Yahoo! ranking, but was unable to get that kind of value.
Since May he has been terrible. Even worse than you'd expect from a normal down year. I hope he bounces back next year, but I am worried that age (or if rumors that he was a juicer are true, decline now that he's clean) might be catching up to him.
I'm definitely staying far away for the first 4 rounds (48 picks) next year. If he slips into the 5th/6th round in drafts I might be eyeing him a bit.