This writer was once told by a very influential man that, (paraphrasing here), “many will come and go, you’ll some and they’ll leave ya. But if you remember anything remember this, you’ll never forget your first.” Of course this writer is referring to fantasy baseball drafts, what did you think it was about?
Today 15-year veteran Alfonso Soriano announced his retirement at the age of 38. The paraphrased quote was from ESPN fantasy analyst Matthew Berry and it’s true you never forget the first player you draft and this writer's was Alfonso Soriano. Back in 2008 yours truly drafted him with the 4th overall pick and was rewarded with a .280/.344/.532 slash line, 29 home runs, 75 RBI’s, 74 R’s, and 19 stolen bases. Sadly 2008 was the last overall productive year Soriano ever had.
Soriano played for 4 teams in his career: Yankees, Rangers, Nationals, Cubs and back to the Yankees for his final season. His career could be summed up in one old baseball phrase, “swing away.”
Soriano has a career 21.5% strikeout rate and a mere 5.9% walk rate; that’s a 0.28 BB/K ratio and he made it work. He averaged 26 home runs a year in his career and after 2001 never had a season with less than 20 home runs up until 2014 where he only hit 6 due to injuries.
Soriano has actually a few impressive numbers worth noting: his career ISO is .230 when the average ISO in 2014 .135. Soriano only had 5 seasons with a negative offensive WAR: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009, and 2014. His fly ball rate was an astounding 46.9% with a HR/FB rate of 15.2%, for reference the average fly ball rate in the last 5 seasons combined is only 36%. In his entire career Soriano never had a swing rate below 50% of the pitches he saw and never had a contact rate below 70%. Soriano ends his career with a .270/.319/.500 slash line with 412 career home runs, 1159 RBI’s and 289 stolen bases.
