Sophomore slump
June 5, 2009 8 Comments
Geovany Soto apparently went to Lou Piniella when he saw he was not in the lineup again last nite. This from the Trib’s Hardball blog:
Geovany Soto had a 15-minute meeting with Piniella in another closed-door session. Soto was apparently miffed that he wasn’t in the lineup again, and wondered where he stood. “He came in to find out what my thinking was, and I told him I’m giving him a little mental breather.” Piniella said he told Soto to use his front arm more while hitting “as opposed to being so back-sided.” Soto is not in danger of losing his starting job. “My plans are very flexible,” Piniella said, while later adding Soto was still his No. 1 catcher.
The Cubs are two months into the season and the player that won the Rookie of the Year in 2008 has not done a thing. Soto is hitting .209 with 1 homerun, 12 RBi, with an OPS of .599. This from a player the Cubs expected to be a big contributor down in the lineup. There is all sort of speculation about the health of Geo (which Cub doesn’t have that speculation this year?). The bottomline though is, if Geo’s hurt or just plain bad he’s not producing. If that doesn’t change quickly, the Cubs will be looking for other options behind the plate.
So how flexible are Lou’s plans? Obviously Koyie Hill is not an everyday major league catcher. But as I write this, neither is Geo.
Geo’s slump is nothing new for Cubs Rookie of the Year’s. The Cubs last two players to win ROY were nowhere to be seen in their sophomore season. Kerry Wood didn’t play at all in 1999 thanks to injury. Jerome Walton’s career with the Cubs went down every year after his ROY season in 1989.
Hopefully Geo can get his season back on track after a few days off. If not, it will be time for the Cubs to look for a plan B at catcher at least for this season, and it will bring into question the long term plans of having Geo behind the plate for the next several seasons.
i’m comparing soto to both garrett atkins and delmon young.
young really looks like he’s broken up — strikeouts skyrocketing, walk rate (never hgih anyway) way down, babip and LD% better than normal if anything, drastic dropoff in contact rates. back to the minors, sir, maybe never to see you again.
atkins, on the other hand, looks simply to be in a bad slump. LD% down on small sample, BABIP down even more suggesting bad luck too, but walk and K rates fine. still hitting normal flyball%, but slightly down on HR/FB — will probably also mean revert. expanding the zone ever so slightly, but contact rate still really good. he’s probable to come back as the player he was.
what about soto, then? LD% actually higher than last year but babip down — all about bad luck — improved strike zone judgment, contact rate better. HR/FB very low, but it’s just 39 flyballs — as with atkins, probably sample size issue.
soto played better than he’s likely to normally be last year. but he’s also a damn sight better than this. i’ll bet he resuscitates over the remainder of the year. cubs should wait him out just as the rockies are committed to waiting out atkins (so they can move him in july).
i hope so gm.
i think it’s harder to wait out a player when the team around him is struggling as much as the cubs are. if bradley, soriano and lee were doing anything for this club soto wouldn’t be this big of an issue. so i think the theory to wait him out is right, but i understand it will be difficult for piniella if his struggles continue.
it also helps atkins’ cause that no one expected them to contend. their big concern probably is boosting his deadline value and then clearing the way for ian stewart — who is also, btw, a struggling youngster getting an extended opportunity having the club hang with him. same could be said of iannetta.
right now, though, koyie hill is not an alternative. keep playing soto.
right now, though, koyie hill is not an alternative. keep playing soto.
Ding ding ding…unless a stint in Iowa will be beneficial, he’s no worse than Hill is, even when slumping. Let’m hack his way out of it.
Amazing with all the shit this club has been through so far this year, they’re still only 3.5 out. I’m OK with it all.
OT, ccd — heading to New Glarus tomorrow. Pardon me whilst I drool on my keyboard…
I’m much less optimistic about Soto than GM is. Soto clearly isn’t as bad as he’s been overall this year. In April he batted a horrific .109/.268/.130. As Harry Pavlidis pointed out at the time he was taking far too many pitches in the zone and his chase rate was a bit higher as well. He rebounded and has hit .265/.374/.337 since then. That’s not much lower than we’d expect as far as batting average, probably a bit higher than we’d expect in obp, and a lot less in slugging. However, as poor as that May 1 on line is compared to last year, it’s still a pretty good batting line for a catcher.
Harry noted toward the end of May that Soto had started swinging at more pitches over the plate and that he’s been more patient (not swinging at bad pitches) than last season.
Soto’s home run per fly ball rate is ridiculously low since he’s only hit one home run. If we adjust that to just 10% it adds 4 more home runs. That actually then moves his slugging up close to .400 and assuming that 3 of those home runs were also flyball outs that are now hits since we’re adjusting to a 10% HR/FB rate we increase his overall average and obp by about 30 points each. It’s an increase in slugging over 100. You end up getting roughly a .235/.400/.385 batting line. A .785 OPS would rank 4th best among qualified catchers this year.
There are serious issues with this though. He’s not going to get on base that much higher than his batting average. If we’re making adjustments, we need to make other adjustments as well. I’m not going to run the numbers because it doesn’t really matter, but what you end up with is about a league average catcher with the strong possibility of being much better than that.
However, if there is a reason he’s not hitting home runs and we should expect his HR/FB rate to remain low, then he becomes the kind of player he was in May (.715 OPS or so). that’s not great, but it’s not terrible.
…if i remember right, he hit that ball the night the wind was howling out to left. i think it was the same game theriot popped two. md, you could have hit one out that day if you got the ball up high enough in the air…lol.
as billy williams used to say: “hit it high and watch it fly”
I think you’re right, ccd, but I’m too lazy to make sure. I really think for some reason that his power has just disappeared. that 2% HR/FB rate is obviously low and would improve, but that home run was about the only ball he has hit to the deep part of any park. I think his power is a real concern at this point.
I’m not that concerned with him overall as long as the Cubs aren’t expecting him to be every bit as good as he was in 2008. That’s not going to happen, but he can still be a valuable catcher. I’m fine with giving him some time off and letting Hill play for a few days, but I hope it doesn’t become something that happens frequently. Soto is better than Hill even if he sucks.
hey a dinger tonight for geo. lmao