Soriano Postseason Numbers

[Mephistopheles]

the probability of soriano hitting as poorly as he has in ~150 random PAs is about 3%. That's enough to suggest the PAs aren't random.

[abuck1220]

sorry, but that list doesn't really bowl me over. there are too many crappy guys in the "good" area and too many good guys in the "crappy" area for me to put too much stock into that.

 

also, guys at the "bad" end of that spectrum have had good playoff numbers as recently as this year (hunter, braun) and a few of the "good" guys (theriot, r martin) have sucked.

[abuck1220]

the probability of soriano hitting as poorly as he has in ~150 random PAs is about 3%. That's enough to suggest the PAs aren't random.

 

they're spread out over like seven years. and he's had a couple very good individual series. did he go from unable to hit postseason pitching in the '01 alds to being ok with postseason pitching in the '01 alcs to back to sucking in the '02 alds to back to being awesome in the '03 alds?

[Mephistopheles]

im not saying its why. im saying that's why he should struggle against right-handed pitchers with quality sliders. you're more likely to face these types of pitchers in the playoffs, so we should expect him to be hurt more than the average hitter in the playoffs.

 

its obviously not something that will cause him to have this big of a split, it's just one ingredient. Some of it is luck, some of it is that he really is ill-suited for post season play. That has nothing to do with the fact that he's performed poorly, it has everything to do with the basis of his production.

 

he's actually slugging .315 against lefties in the post season (40 PAs is small) but still. there's more at work than inability to hit sliders and proneness to swinging at them. the fact that he *probably* has a higher percentage of his production coming on mistake pitches is another ingredient.

[SouthSideRyan]

But aren't all but the greatest hitters succepitble to some type of pitch? Be it them getting busted up inside, chasing the high fastball, etc. Is a slider low and away an easier weakness to exploit than others for some reason?

[Mephistopheles]

some are more than others. decent offspeed pitches are common

[jersey cubs fan]

the probability of soriano hitting as poorly as he has in ~150 random PAs is about 3%. That's enough to suggest the PAs aren't random.

 

they're spread out over like seven years. and he's had a couple very good individual series. did he go from unable to hit postseason pitching in the '01 alds to being ok with postseason pitching in the '01 alcs to back to sucking in the '02 alds to back to being awesome in the '03 alds?

 

And then absolutely god awful pathetic in the '03 ALCS, '03 WS, '07 NLDS and '08 NLDS.

 

Soriano crapped the bed in the 2003 playoffs.

 

Soriano has been horrible in the playoffs, I don't know people have trouble thinking that maybe there's a reason.

 

My personal theory on Soriano is pitchers are just too confident in their own abilities to get him out as easily as he seems to get himself out. Early in his career pitchers thought he was just another young talented player who they could get out with their regular approach. They actually did that throughout 2001 when he was 25 and did next to nothing in the regular season. He exploded at age 26 during the regular season (2002 season) from a power standpoint, but he was still a fairly easy out. By 2003, however, teams were done challenging him "when it mattered". In the 2003 playoffs he struck out 26 times. During the regular season teams tried to beat him with high heat and while they still got him out 66% of the time he did enough damage that in the playoffs they weren't willing to take that chance. That carried over in 2004/2005, when he had Neifi-like OBPs. Perhaps he made some adjustments for the past three years, but he was just barely better than he was at his earlier peak, and he was still the same easy out that teams could shut down if they were not too proud or cocky enough that they'd constantly challenge him.