Revisiting Jorge Soler: Will We Continue To Be Surprised?
On May 18, Sean Morash wrote an article titled, “Should We Be Surprised By Jorge Soler?” Soler was off to a blistering pace, amassing a .300/.400/.500 stat line with multiple stolen bases at the time of Sean’s article, resulting in a 1.5 wins above replacement (WAR).
Jorge Soler didn’t keep up the initial 6.0 WAR pace but there’s no question his 3.7 WAR was a result of a career year for the talented outfielder. Looking back on his season, did we learn enough to answer Sean’s question? Let’s investigate.
A few of Soler’s 2019 season stats really jump off the page. First, his 48 home runs, which led the AL. Soler is a big man (6’ 4” and 230 lbs) and his Statcast data reveals average exit velocities, average home run distance and launch angles all higher than the MLB average. Until this year, he had never hit more than a dozen bombs in a season so it’s clear he found a new approach at the dish.
It’s reasonable to think that that Mike Trout would have led the AL in home runs if he stayed healthy for the entire season, but Soler played in all 162 games for the Royals this year and means a great deal. Until 2019, he surpassed 100 games only once, playing in 101 games for the Cubs in 2015. Solermay have coined a new phrase this year, “Good things come to those who play!”
In addition to leading the AL in HRs (48), Soler finished 2nd in RBIs (117), 5th in SLG (.569) and 7th in OPS (.992).
However, with a WAR of 3.7, Jorge ranked only 85th in the league with the likes of Jose Altuve, Tommy Pham and Yordan Alvarez. Impressive company regardless of the ranking, but with all these notable stats, why the low ranking?
Soler also led the AL in strikeouts and his defensive WAR was a grotesque -1.8. A notable work-a-holic and student of the game, he’ll have to spend some time during the offseason working on these two areas in particular if he’s going to take the next step toward stardom. Should he do so, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to think he’ll be matching stat lines and mentioned in the same breath with All-Stars like Joey Gallo or George Springer in 2020.
Going back to the original question posed by Sean: should we be surprised by Jorge Soler? The answer is certainly “YES!” Especially when comparing his full 2019 season to his past accomplishments.
The former top prospect’s abilities were always well documented and as we peel back the layers a little further, we see many of these achievements can be repeated. What we can’t predict yet is a positive shift of those other aspects of his game that continue to hold him back from reaching his true potential. Should he make similar advances in those areas next season, we’ll be watching a player who is becoming a superstar!
Perhaps Sean’s question in May 2020 will be, “Will we continue to be surprised by Soler?”
