Alfonso Soriano hit his 38th home run of the year in a 3-1 loss to the Mets today, putting him one shy of his career high. Since and including 2002, Soriano ranks 7th in the majors in home runs hit. That’s quite impressive. But please take a look at the walk column. Soriano is the only player in the top 10 below 200 walks. Vlad Guerrero is next among that group, and he has 120 more walks than Soriano.
Usually someone who can hit home runs at that rate induces a bit of fear in a pitcher. They pitch more carefully to these hitters, especially in tight situations. So either the pitchers are less afraid of Soriano (doubtful), or he’s just not taking advantage of pitches outside the strike zone. Either way, this is another part of the argument that his offensive strengths make him a better lower part of the order hitter.
this could be the year of MVP Soriano.
That will surely fatten his contract this winter.
Even though he is having a great year (and I’m about to write a mea culpa for predicting he’d be awful), the only way a guy on a last place team should get the MVP is if there’s no one even remotely close to him in production. But Beltran’s putting up the same – if not better – numbers and his team is 15 up. He’ll get the nod. And of course Pujols will still be in the running as well.
He’s also the only one in the top 17 with over 87 steals (he stands at 152 at the moment). How many pitchers want to walk a guy into scoring position with RBI hitters coming up?
That’s what makes Soriano different.
Sure, Bonds has stolen over 500 during his career and he gets a ton of intentional walks…but Bonds is one of the few you can beat by walking them into scoring position (especially since the 5,6, & 7 hitters come up after him). Besides, Bonds has only 28 steal attempts since the start of ’02.
Here’s another bit on this same line of logic. Tim Raines ranks 6th on the list of most IBB’s during the 1980’s and 2nd for steals in the decade. He had some good hitters behind him, who could drive him in. Maybe it’s because they were afraid he’d hit a triple and thought they’d have a better chance getting him out if they made him do it one base at a time? He ranks 3rd on the triples list for the decade. He was fast on that astroturf in Montreal.
Dave, I’ve said it before but …Soriano K’s alot! In the link he is second behind Adam Dunnin strikeouts. Any decent pitcher probably thinks he can whiff Soriano – whose strikeout average is only slightly lower than his BA. I know you don’t think high K’s are a problem for batters but they’ve got to come from somewhere and in Soriano’s case it is most likely by swinging at balls.