Rafael Soriano Signs Minor League Deal with Cubs

[Guest]

i'm already picturing him jose verasing a bunch of games

 

 

on the one hand, i'm happy it's a minor league deal. on the other, it's kind of alarming that he had to settle for one.

 

1) Relievers are relievers so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

2) Boras may have Boras'd this situation right good

[sontensei]

The barstool guy has already said this is not the trade he referenced you doofus

 

i love you too!

[CyHawk_Cub]

Sweet, so maybe he can go join Medina in Iowa for a while.

[Guest]

CUBS, RIGHTHANDER RAFAEL SORIANO AGREE TO TERMS ON MINOR LEAGUE CONTRACT

 

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

 

CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs and right-handed pitcher Rafael Soriano have agreed to terms on a minor league contract. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

Soriano, 35, is 22-28 with 207 saves and a 2.85 ERA (200 ER/630.2 IP) in 585 big league appearances, all but eight in relief, covering 13 seasons with Seattle (2002-06), Atlanta (2007-09), Tampa Bay (2010), the New York Yankees (2011-12) and Washington (2013-14). Over the last three seasons, Soriano has combined to record 117 saves, an average of 39 per season, with a 9-5 record and 2.84 ERA (62 ER/196.1 IP) in 201 relief outings.

 

The 6-foot-4, 230-pound righthander primarily served as a set-up man the first seven seasons of his career before saving 27 games for the Braves in 2009. He recorded a career-high 45 saves and was named an A.L. All-Star for

Joe Maddon’s Rays in 2010, his first of three seasons with more than 40 saves. Soriano joined the Yankees in 2011 and recorded 23 holds as a set-up man to Mariano Rivera in 2011 and saved 42 games for the Yankees in 2012. He notched 43 saves in 2013 and 32 saves last year with the Nationals.

 

Soriano went 4-1 with 32 saves and a 3.19 ERA (22 ER/62.0 IP) in 64 relief appearances for the Nationals in 2014. He has turned in a 3.19 ERA or lower in 10 of his 13 seasons. Soriano is a native of San Jose, Dominican Republic.

[tfarks]

Neat

[sneakypower]

Boras realllly overplayed his hand (again)

[SouthSideRyan]

I have to imagine this is a split contract with a fairly decent major league guarantee.

[Deeg]

James Wagner

‏@JamesWagnerWP

Rafael Soriano has a minor league with Cubs. It's for $4.1M prorated base with up to $4M in bonuses for games finished & appearances.

[Banedon]

Wittenmeyer says Soriano expected to need 3 weeks of prep time before joining Cubs.

[Cubswin11]

He did throw a cutter 1/3 of the time last year so maybe we can get some Bosio magic

[Little Slide Rooter]

Best case scenario; we get a bargain on a stud closet.

 

Worst case scenario; Cubs fans can go back to blaming Soriano whenever anything goes wrong.

[Cubswin11]

I don't think he'll be "a stud" but if he can even be an average closer I do like the idea of being able to use Rondon in higher leverage situations. Being able to use Strop, Grimm, Rondon and hopefully Ramierz in higher leverage spots in the 6th-8th probably makes the bullpen better if Soriano can just be a average closer.

[Little Slide Rooter]

But still, Ramirez, Motte, Grimm, Strop, Rondon, Soriano looks pretty solid. Assuming we don't run into any lefties in the late innings.

[Clem Fandango]

James Wagner

‏@JamesWagnerWP

Rafael Soriano has a minor league with Cubs. It's for $4.1M prorated base with up to $4M in bonuses for games finished & appearances.

 

I've been a vocal opponent to signing Soriano if the money was too much, but this deal is perfectly acceptable.

[toonsterwu]

Hard not to like this deal. I imagine there's a wink-nod agreement in place to call him up when he's ready, but it's a minor league deal with half the money in bonuses.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hard not to like this deal. I imagine there's a wink-nod agreement in place to call him up when he's ready, but it's a minor league deal with half the money in bonuses.

 

I would think there is a hard date involved.

[Guest]

http://cubsrelated.blogspot.com/2015/06/who-is-rafael-soriano.html?m=0

 

As a fastball-slider guy this brought me to ask: How does Soriano fare vs same-sided hitters compared to opposite handed ones? Against RHH, Soriano gets an astonishing number of whiffs on his four-seamer. For one thing, when the hitter swings they miss 32% of the time. The other most likely outcome for a swing is fouling it off, 46% of swings against his four-seam fastball turn into a foul ball. That means that only 22% of the time his four-seamer was swung at by a RHH did it go into play in 2014. Unreal. His whiff/swing is better than 99% of all pitchers in baseball that throw a four-seam fastball. That pitch is absolutely elite. Against RHH. And he does all this with average velocity. That's amazing.

 

When we turn it around and take a look at lefties, his four-seam becomes rather pedestrian. He still gets better than average whiffs when he gets a swing, better than about 64% of pitchers. But compared to how affective it is against RHH, that's nothing. His whiff rate (which includes players not swinging) drops from nearly 17% vs RHH to just over 10% when facing a lefty. And given that he uses his slider less frequently against lefties, he's relying on a fairly pedestrian pitch to take care of lefties.

 

Analyzing his slider was interesting. It is a pretty worthless pitch against RHH, despite the fact that he's willing to throw it more than a third of the time. Not only does it produce an average whiff rate (15%), but in general, one-fourth of the time he throws it, righties are able to put it into play. On top of that, he's not getting grounders or pop ups with it. It's kind of amazing he's willing to throw it as often as he is to righties.

 

Now we flip again to lefties. Where he uses the pitch quite a bit less, only one-fifth of the time! So the most notoriously split-heavy pitch does what for him? Well, for one thing it manages an excellent 20% whiff rate. Just to reiterate, the slider is notorious for being far worse against same-sided hitters, yet Soriano gets quite a few more whiffs against lefties than righties with it. What he does not get, however, are grounders. Soriano's slider produces only 21.5% grounders against lefties, that's absolutely awful. That's extremely unfortunate, because it means lefties are likely to tee off against the pitch. While lefties didn't hit for a high average against his slider (.160), they did manage to a .200ISO. And that is the only thing about 2014 Rafael Soriano that made any sense. I'll explain.

 

Given all of what we know about his pitches then, I decided to take a look at the actual body of work he put in, in 2014. Needless to say I was astonished. He was significantly better against lefties than righties. He had a higher K%, a lower BB%, and his HR% was only .2% higher against LHH than RHH. I honestly don't know how to explain that.

 

What I do know is this: Rafael Soriano is a pretty good pen arm. He's certainly an upgrade over a James Russell, Edwin Jackson, or Travis Wood. Easily. He'll definitely help. What I don't know is how on Earth he does it. A man with average fastball velocity should not get an insane number of whiffs. A man with a slider whould not get a good deal more whiffs against opposite handed hitters. Soriano does both of those things. Yet despite his the pitch he throws 80% of the time to lefties being below average, he owns lefties.

[ARCubsFan]

[tweet]

[/tweet]