![]() ![]() But Rosario has never matched Soler’s 2018-19 offensive peak, at least not over a full season. The 30-year-old posted solid numbers each season from 2017-20 with the Twins, but he’s never had a season with a wRC+ more than 17 points above league average. He’s limited to the corners - primarily left field - but he shouldn’t need to see too much time at DH over the next couple years. Rosario’s defensive track record is also a bit spotty, but public metrics have generally been more enthused with his work than with Soler’s. Yet the intervening season and a half were quite poor, and Soler doesn’t have the defensive profile to remain valuable even as he’s in a slump offensively. The potential implementation of the universal DH in collective bargaining talks could expand Soler’s market, but clubs are increasingly wary of committing everyday DH at-bats to players unless they’re an elite middle-of-the-order presence. Soler has been that caliber of hitter over a full season in 2019. Public metrics have long pegged him as a well below-average corner outfielder, and he spent a decent chunk of time at designated hitter in Kansas City. That also hints at another red flag in Soler’s game: his defense. 192/.288/.370 mark with the Royals in 2021, a bad enough first half that each of FanGraphs and Baseball Reference actually pegged Soler’s overall work this past season as below replacement level even after accounting for his late-season turnaround. Between the start of 2020 and this past summer’s trade deadline, he compiled 534 plate appearances of. With that swing-and-miss comes a high strikeout rate that can tank Soler’s batting averages when things aren’t going well. Aside from a 24-game showing as a rookie, Soler has never had a season in which he’s made contact on even 70% of his swings the 2021 league average, for reference, was 76.1%. That’s an impressive combination upon which to build, but Soler also has real swing-and-miss concerns. ![]() He’s walked at an above-average clip in each season since 2016. In addition to that huge power, Soler rarely chases pitches outside the strike zone. His 48 home runs the latter year paced the American League, and those power results were backed up by top-of-the-scale batted ball metrics. 265/.354/.541 (132 wRC+) despite playing his home games in Kansas City’s spacious Kauffman Stadium. Over those two seasons, the right-handed slugger hit. His massive power made him a top prospect, and while it took a few seasons for him to settle in as a regular, Soler demonstrated the offensive upside that had made him so highly touted between 2018-19. Soler, 30 in February, has been a prototypical three-true-outcomes slugger for much of his career. Regarding both players, that’s a difficult question, considering their up-and-down track records before they landed in Atlanta. Teams now considering a free agent pursuit of either have to determine what to expect moving forward, though. Soler’s and Rosario’s heroics were enough to cement their places in Braves lore. Soler claimed the World Series MVP by hitting a trio of longballs against the Astros during the following set. Rosario hit three homers in 28 plate appearances during the NLCS en route to series MVP honors in a win over the Dodgers. 271/.330/.573 mark in that time checked in 33 points above the league average.īoth players also had great postseasons, although Soler’s was briefly interrupted by a positive COVID-19 test. Rosario only tallied 106 trips to the dish down the stretch - he was on the injured list at the time of his trade - but his. 269/.358/.524 with 14 home runs across 242 regular season plate appearances with the Braves, offensive output that was 32 percentage points above average by measure of wRC+. Yet both players flipped the script with a strong couple months in Atlanta. Neither played particularly well at their initial stop, and Atlanta acquired them in separate deadline day swaps that cost them only cash and one prospect: Kasey Kalich. Both players began the year in the AL Central - Soler in Kansas City, Rosario in Cleveland. Soler and Rosario, in particular, profile as two of the most intriguing remaining free agent outfielders. It wouldn’t be surprising to see someone from that group eventually return, but all thirty clubs will have a chance to pursue that trio whenever the lockout comes to an end. Only Duvall remains on the roster, though, with each of Soler, Rosario and Pederson having qualified for free agency at the end of the season. Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario and - to a lesser extent - Joc Pederson and Adam Duvall all performed at a high level after being acquired in seemingly minor deals in advance of the trade deadline, a haul that helped Atlanta to a World Series title. The Braves’ midseason outfield reconstruction has been well-documented. ![]()
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