Free agent reviews: Alfonso Soriano
Rumor on the street is that Alfonso is looking for $17m/year. And in M’s fandom, some fans want the M’s to sign Soriano and Schmidt which is clearly insanity.
Soriano’s 30. He’s made five straight All Star teams. His conversion to left field started badly but I’d bet the good end-of-year defensive stats are going to show him at average or not much below average (he’s a weird case for the bad, traditional stats: his fielding percentage is bad, his zone rating good). BP’s got him at 9 runs above average, which… well, RAA isn’t a great fielding stat. I’d be shocked if that was borne out by UZR/etc.
Reasons to sign him:
– Add offense, hopefully
– Add a little bit of speed
Reasons not to sign him:
– What the hell happened to him this year?
– He’s right-handed and they’re not moving the fences
– They already have a big roster issue with too many LF/DH/1B guys
– Soriano doesn’t look like a guy you really, really want to be paying $17m when he’s 35
– The Phillies supposedly want him, and every horrible move Gillick makes us feel good about his departure
The first question is the really unsettling one. David Pinto at Baseball Musings touched on this last week, so I’ll quote him
If I’m a GM interested in signing Alfonso, I’ll want to know what changed. Why did he draw so many more walks than in 2006 than in previous seasons? Did the Washington coaches get him to change his approach? Was it that with a poor offense behind him, he got less to hit? If it was coaching, it this something that he’s absorbed, or does he constantly need to be reminded?
At .350, with his power, he’s a very productive player. At a .330 OBA, he’s more of an out machine and certainly not a good leadoff hitter. My guess is that the teams convinced 2006 is real are the teams that wind up bidding for Alfonso. The other will find the money offered too rich.
I entirely agree with Pinto on this. My thought is it’s likely a combination of factors: RFK suited him, for one, it was a contract year and (as we learn in “Baseball Between the Numbers”) the contract year effect is real. I don’t think this is a new level of performance for Soriano, though as a Mariners-obsessed writer I haven’t spent the kind of time researching this that a team thinking about plunking down $17m would.
Let someone else overpay. The M’s have more important needs and even if you want to upgrade the offense somehow, there should be better ways to spend that money.
Soriano’s deal, though, will still be better than whatever Carlos Lee gets.
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I hate to think what all this will end up being. Boras thinks Zito is worth 5/$75, and “D-Mat” (as apparently Boras has taken to calling Matsuzaka) needs 4 or 5/$50.
oh, and the Jersey papers continue their Japan Watch with the news via the Bergen Record that “According to a report from Japan, the Texas Rangers could emerge as the high bidder, though the Yankees are said to be formulating a competitive bid.”
The contracts being asked for by Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Lee are data points A and B in the case that major league general managers, as a group, need a lot of help.
Soriano projects as about a 3-4 win player the next few years and will probably be around a 2 win player by the time this new contract ends.
Carlos Lee is about a 2 win player right now, and will probably be a replacement level player by the time his new contract ends.
Soriano should get something like 3 years, $33 million. Lee should get something like 3 years, $15 million.
The fact that both are asking for, and might receive, contracts near $100 million is just lunacy.
Soriano is a waste of money (as most free agents appear to be in this current crop).
msb, the mere fact that Texas submitted a bid and the M’s did not gives me bad vibes about this off-season, and the team’s willingness to jump into the free agent market. Was a limited period of uncertainty about a Matsuzaka bid really going to derail our offseason plans? C’mon. If he ends up shutting us down for years for another team in the AL West, I’ll never forgive the M’s. Good thing the Yankees probably won’t be outbid by the likes of Texas.
My hope? No bid is deemed acceptable to the Lions, or Matsuzaka can’t work a deal, and we get a shot at him next year. If we end up with Soriano at 17 mill a year over Matsuzaka, that tiny part of me that still has faith in the team’s ability to evaluate talent and acceptable risk will be taken off the respirator and finally laid to rest.
My stomach turns over every time I hear Soriano’s name mentioned. And it turns over two or three times if he’s mentioned going to a team I follow. The contract is guaranteed to be a disaster for the team that signs him, perhaps as bad as Zito.
At his peak (ages 26 and 27), he was an exceptional player — .290 EQA and a WARP of 8.5-10*. With age and the trade to Texas he became simply an average 2B — .265 EQA and 4-5 WARP. (Was he really an all-star in 2004 and 2005?) He become overrated and overhyped because “people” got excited about his power-speed combination (near 40-40) and ignored skills that matter like hsi horrid defense and poor OBP.
Then when he should be fading more, he puts up his best year yet. If he wasn’t overhyped, once traded for A-Rod, and regarded as a superstar already, everyone would be claiming FLUKE. And 2006 is obviously a fluke. Maybe his real ability is closer to 2002/2003 than 2004/2005, but the chance he continues at the 2006 level is ZERO.
He might be worth $15M in 2007 and/or 2008. But, as DMZ noted, there’s no way that contract isn’t bad beyond the second year and it could be a Boone-like disaster, though I expect Soriano won’t be THAT bad.
It’s pretty clear his approach at the plate changed, perhaps as a reaction to how NL pitchers pitched him. Not only did his BB jump from 30 to 50 (ignoring IBB) but his K jumped from 125 to 160. I assume he saw a lot more pitches — anyone have historical P/PA data on him — perhaps because pitchers nibbled against him and got deeper in the count. But I don’t think that’s a real change in ability and I’d expect him to be a 6 WARP player going forward.
* When talking about a player being 5 WARP and thus worth $10M/year, is that WARP1 or WARP3? I notice there’s a pretty big difference between the two.
Soriano projects as about a 3-4 win player the next few years and will probably be around a 2 win player by the time this new contract ends.
Carlos Lee is about a 2 win player right now, and will probably be a replacement level player by the time his new contract ends.
Is this mainly a defense thing? Over the last three years, Lee has a .286 EQA and Soriano has a .278 EQA, and they are the same age.
I laughed when I heard Sean McAdam suggest the other day that Soriano and Lee were at the top of the class with Aramis Ramirez a step below them, even though Ramirez is two years younger, can apparently play adequate defense at an infield position, and has a .300 EQA over the last three years.
Is this mainly a defense thing? Over the last three years, Lee has a .286 EQA and Soriano has a .278 EQA, and they are the same age.
Yes. Lee is a terrible defender (and a terrible baserunner, which counts too), and probably should be a DH going forward. If he’s in LF, he’s taking around 10 runs a year off the board, and he’s only adding around 30 with his bat.
Soriano should be a pretty good defensive outfielder, despite his early season troubles. He’s got the skills to be one of the best defensive LFs in the game, and I wouldn’t rule out using him in center field if the need arose. He’s also a pretty good baserunner.
Toss in the fact that Soriano’s skillset will age much better than Lee’s will, and Soriano is coming off a vastly superior season, and Soriano’s clearly the better bet. Among bad bets, he’s the best of the bunch.
Aramis Ramirez is terrible at third base, by the way. He’s another guy who is going to be amazingly overpaid. This whole free agent crop sucks.
Slightly off-topic, but Dave started it :)…
I don’t get surprised much any more at some of the contract numbers thrown about in sports these days, but the talk on Carlos Lee truly stuns me. Lee just isn’t all that good — and OPS of 880 for a poor fielding LF isn’t much; he’s a useful piece like Raul Ibanez, but he’s talked about like he’s a star or even a superstar. That said, I think Dave is overly harsh on him and I think 3/$20 would be OK. He’s consistently been a 4.5-5 win player and PECOTA for 2007-2010 (done before 2006) were 3.8, 3.5, 2.9, 2.1. That’s better than 2 wins up front and replacment level at the end.
Good news is the Mariners don’t seem to be interested in him at all.
Soriano should be a pretty good defensive outfielder, despite his early season troubles. He’s got the skills to be one of the best defensive LFs in the game, and I wouldn’t rule out using him in center field if the need arose. He’s also a pretty good baserunner.
Checking out tangotiger’s fan scouting report, Soriano gets poor marks in first step, hands, and release, while he scores well in speed and arm strength/accuracy. That basically lines up with my thoughts about Soriano as a good athlete who isn’t very good at playing defense. Maybe it’s just a pet peeve that I should get rid of, but I hate seeing guys with a poor first step and poor routes to the ball playing out in CF, even if they are really fast. And I guess I don’t see that many players out there improving their first step.
Aramis Ramirez is terrible at third base, by the way. He’s another guy who is going to be amazingly overpaid. This whole free agent crop sucks.
I sort of figured as much, given his 47 ranking in tango’s fans scouting report, which was higher than Soriano’s 42 ranking in his last season at 2B. Of course, Ramirez doesn’t really have the tools to move to the outfield, so I guess on second thought, Soriano should probably have a higher defensive value than Ramirez.
I have vivid memories of Aramis playing third. They are not vivid in a good way.
FWIW, re Texas, they don’t have as many holes to fill as the Mariners. remember, that was a NY-area paper, though– TR Sullivan out of Texas says “Sources say the Rangers aren’t optimistic about their chances. Most observers believe that the New York Yankees are prepared to go all out to get Matsuzaka. The Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers are also expected to pursue Matsuzaka and the winning bid could exceed $20 million.”
So the question is, with the M’s passing on Matsuzaka, will the front office feel pressured into making SOME kind of big splashy free-agent signing as part of their oft-stated keeping-faith-with-the-fans compact? (You know, reinforce the illusion of building a winner as opposed to actually building one?)
If so, what sort of “panic signing” (ala Jarrod Washburn) can you see the Mariners making this offseason?
I for one am relieved to see that “Soriano Inflation” will probably price him out of the Mariner payroll as much as “Matsuzaka Inflation” did.
I don’t get surprised much any more at some of the contract numbers thrown about in sports these days, but the talk on Carlos Lee truly stuns me. Lee just isn’t all that good — and OPS of 880 for a poor fielding LF isn’t much; he’s a useful piece like Raul Ibanez, but he’s talked about like he’s a star or even a superstar. That said, I think Dave is overly harsh on him and I think 3/$20 would be OK. He’s consistently been a 4.5-5 win player and PECOTA for 2007-2010 (done before 2006) were 3.8, 3.5, 2.9, 2.1. That’s better than 2 wins up front and replacment level at the end.
Because WARP calculates offensive replacement level and defensive replacement level individually, it isn’t a very accurate guage of real value. Basically, Clay’s system is saying that Carlos Lee will be 4 wins better than a guy who hits like Scott Podsednik and fields like Manny Ramirez. But that guy doesn’t play in the majors – he’s likely in A-ball, and isn’t a true reflection of a replacement level player.
If we use a real replacement level, and not one that’s based on some hypothetical non-major leaguer like WARP does, Lee’s win value goes down, because the value of the guy he’s replacing is higher than WARP would have us believe.
Basically, WARP is wrong.
Are we sure the Ms are really passing on Matsuzaka or is this just a power play????
Dave or Derek: considering this is a thread about free agent LFs, I was wondering something. If Raul Ibanez was a free agent this offseason, coming off the season he’s just had, what kind of contract do you think he would get? Not what he deserves, but what he would actually receive in this market climate.
I’d guess Raul would get something between 3/24 and 3/30 in this market. But this market is insane.
Werewolves of London, that’s a lot of money!!
I second the question made by terry. I get most of my Mariner info from USSM and since you’ve been down the last few days, there have only been a few blurbs about the decision not to pursue “D-Mat”. What are your thoughts on this? I don’t find Bavasi that clever for this to be a power play. But, why are we passing? Especially since Seattle seems to be the perfect fit for this young foreign pitcher. Please someone expalain the insanity, as my lifetime allegiance is quickly waning. At the very least lead me to believe you are making a reasonable attempt. I don’t want poor money spent on Soriano, Schmidt, or Zito, just to make a “splash”. Matsuzaka and bargain chips can field a compitent rotation.
I’m just so frustrated with this team, I can’t even formulate a straight thought that accurately dipicates my anger and discontent with the organization
The key for Matsuzaka is that Bavasi stated that Yamauchi said he was not interested. Once he says something, he’s not going to back off from it–that’s all she wrote.
And don’t confuse this move with the typical Ms front office blunderings; the results are the same, but the causes are different.
i should be flogged for even asking the question……
(shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)
So Number 17, since you seem to know what caused this particular non-blunder, what exactly was the reasoning for announcing that the Mariners wouldn’t go after Matsuzaka? I’m stumped….
Ever since Lincoln’s dumb (my opinion) comment about Bavasi and Grover being on a “short leash”, I believe that a long term deal to big name guys, is probable. Bill B has to get through May or it’s lights out. I very much doubt that his thinking is long term any more. Selling Soriano to higher Management is easy, big name, gaudy stat’s, happy fan base, etc. Zito, same thing, Schmidt, bingo.
Generally, Yamauchi doesn’t concern himself with day to day operations. The only exceptions tend to be with Japanese players. Something must have happened on the Japanese end, since some money has been known to come from other parts of the budget.
As to what that event was…nobody knows. As to why it was announced, it’s not exactly known—I would suspect that this was a form of public disapproval expressed by Yamauchi, or something cultural (but that’s just speculation).
Not sure, but it may have been a real possibility that Seattle was never a contender for Matsuzaka, since everything would have had to have gone through Yamauchi anyway…
I think this is a year to sit the free agent market out.
We need to improve but these prices are crazy and reminding me of the year Arod got his money.
I remember the rebound year when Vlad was had on the cheap (comparatively) and sense a similar scenerio could be in the future.
Get Schmidt if the terms are okay (since he really seems to want to be here and we need a TOR starter) and look to Japan (where other than D-Kice bargains can still be found), fill out the roster with short term (1-2 yr. placeholders) and wait for the farm to produce and for a market correction year in free agency.
#21 – I thought the order was that the M’s organization state-side expressed no interest, made a recommendation to Yamauchi that Matsuzaka shouldn’t be in the plans, and then he agreed not to override that decision. I hadn’t read anything that suggested the initial decision not to make a bid came from Japan. Do you have a source for what you are claiming?
#21: it’s been rumored that Boras has told the Ms that his client isn’t interested in sharing the spotlight with Ichiro
I find this whole posting intrigue to be a great diversion to the depression triggered by one of the least compelling world series since, well, boston won….
My sources (mere print media), admittedly, have been known to be wrong more than they have been right, but the Seattle Times had a piece on this during the outage:
Here
Key language:
“But the team’s baseball strategists spent the past month fine-tuning their offseason plans and let it be known internally Matsuzaka was a no-go.
All that remained was to see whether Yamauchi, who has been known to go his own way, would step in and overrule his U.S.-based decision-makers. Word that Yamauchi had made his decision began surfacing in Japanese newspapers Wednesday and Bavasi later confirmed it.”
What do you guys think about Japanese LHP Kei Igawa? Its highly probable he will get posted this year, but will probably only require a posting fee in the 5-10 million dollar range. Plus, he already said he’d be willing to take a sub-market contract to play on the west coast. (I’m thinking 3yrs/15million). Would make a very good 3/4 starter.
I’ve read some stuff about the Mariners being interested in Igawa. He doesn’t have the stuff of Matsuzaka but he will be a better bargain.
As for Matsuzaka, I keep on hoping that the announcement that the Mariners won’t bid on him is just a bidding ploy, and that on Wed/Thursday, it will be magically announced that the Mariners won the bidding.
But these hopes are increasingly fading fast and are based upon a wishful delusion. It’s kinda like the feeling one gets about the Mariners playoff chances in August.
John Donovan looks at possible big money to be spent this off-season…
Dave’s offseason plan may be alive for someone:
— Boston Globe
#21 – I thought the order was that the M’s organization state-side expressed no interest, made a recommendation to Yamauchi that Matsuzaka shouldn’t be in the plans, and then he agreed not to override that decision. I hadn’t read anything that suggested the initial decision not to make a bid came from Japan. Do you have a source for what you are claiming?
This may be more of interpretation than anything else, but..no interest, but at what price? If Yamauchi was willing to kick in money, I think the front office would be interested. Moreover, if all of the impetus was from the American side of management, I doubt Yamauchi would have Bavasi make a public statement concerning his role. That he would make a public statement, even indirectly, says something me.
Thanks Gwangung for the insight on the making of the decision not to pursue Matsuzaka (i.e. Yamauchi didn’t demand it), but I still don’t really understand why they felt compelled to announce it so publically. Why not simply pretend to have lost out on the bidding? Are they trying to tell someone else that they’re more interested in them (Jason Schmidt?), or is there something more subtle behind it? Any ideas?
The Mariners didn’t call a press conference to announce they weren’t going after Matsuzaka. Larry Stone wrote a piece for the Times the day before the news came out where he stated the M’s weren’t going to be involved, and then the next day, we posted the note that the M’s weren’t going to even make a bid. Later that afternoon, Corey Brock got ahold of Bill Bavasi and asked him to confirm a report Larry and the blog had already made public, and he did so.
I doubt the M’s were planning on telling the world that they weren’t bidding. Larry Stone did that for them, and then we followed up on that.
Uhm, made any friends at BP recently 🙂
Seriously this is great stuff and part of why I come to this site. So if I took BRAR and added FRAA* (instead of FRAR) and divided by 9 to convert runs to wins, would I have the right measure of wins a player contributes?
* Of course I recall your explanation that BP’s fielding metrics aren’t the best, so let’s agree that for my question FRAA is the “right” number of runs prevented above average and not necessarily the BP version thereof.
Did Carl Everett sign with an A-ball team. I missed that.
Thanks Dave. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I guess I was assuming the M’s voluntarily offered up the information, as opposed to having it ferreted out by the press. Nonetheless, I’m surprised they weren’t a bit more coy given the generally negative reaction. And I guess I would have thought they’d make a token bid anyway unless something else was going on.
As regards the non-bid on Matsuzaka – I don’t think the Mariners’ front office have much of a track record in cunning, conniving duplicity.
They are more inclined to the sort of obvious, gullible, near-sighted free agent blundering that I hoped was the preserve of Jim Bowden.
I must go now before I become overwhelmed in superabundant, florid adjectives.
Seriously this is great stuff and part of why I come to this site. So if I took BRAR and added FRAA* (instead of FRAR) and divided by 9 to convert runs to wins, would I have the right measure of wins a player contributes?
I’d rather use VORP than BRAR. They’re theoretically measuring the same thing, but Keith’s got a better handle on replacement level than Clay does. But yes, VORP + good fielding metric should get you in the ballpark of win value added. Replacement level players tend to field at a league average rate or so (there’s a large population of no-hit, all-glove players in Triple-A), so make sure your defensive metric of choice is valuing them at runs above average, not runs above replacement.
That said, keep in mind that VORP is a value statistic, not a projection tool, so it doesn’t work particularly well for things like trying to figure out which free agents to sign, especially for pitchers.
#35 – Yeah, I’d put the chances of a “trick play” on the Matsuzaka bid to be just below me winning the lottery this week (I didn’t purchase a ticket, so you can do the math on the odds). That seems to be a very unlikely strategy that would just piss a lot of people off, and probably work only once, if at all (don’t get me wrong, I’d take it working once). With Yamauchi’s name as part of the confirmation, I don’t think it fits his mode of operation to lie (or Bavasi’s for that matter).
amazingly, Kirby Arnold broke the story in the Herald on Oct 26th, reporting the internal decision, before it went to Yamauchi…
So, according to Pinto, the difference between “a very productive player” and “an out machine” is .020 in OBP? That’s about 15 walks per season, or one walk every 11 games. Is that really that big of a deal?
Even if that’s a significant difference, perhaps we could tone down the use of superlatives? In my book, Edgar Martinez was a “very productive hitter” and Jeff Cirillo was “an out machine.”
Uh, the exact quote was “more of an out machineâ€.
And Jeff Cirillo posted the following OBPs, in successive years: .371, .391, .367,.402, .401, .391. Even the last two years playing part-time in Milwaukee, he’s posted.373 and .369 OBP’s. He’s not Edgar, but he’s not an out machine, either- he’s just another player who got Screwed by Safeco.