Alfonso Soriano

[savant]

I was thinking about Soriano's terrible season last night and wanted to put some thoughts together on him. In his first two years with the Cubs, he was a solid producer providing a ton of power and right around a .900 ops. Last year he looked like an old man, and put up a .726 ops which would be hard to accept from a slick fielding shortstop. I hope that the health of his left knee was a major factor last year, because it seems impossible to fall off of a cliff in the manner that Soriano did.

He is really going to need to make some mechanical adjustments to be able to handle offspeed pitches better, because the league finally figured out last year that the only thing he can hit is a fastball. He saw about 25% fewer fastballs last year than he ever had while playing in the NL.

What does everyone think? Can he make the necessary adjustment? Can he return to some type of relative health? Is he done, with the Cubs on the hook for five more years of premium player salary?

With the way the Cubs salary structure is set up over the next few years, with the jettisoning of Bradley. If Soriano and Soto can not return to close to 2008 levels of production, we are set up to have some pretty lean years.