Soriano To The Cubs
Posted by Steve L. on November 19th, 2006 · Comments (12)
From TSN.ca -
Chicago radio station ESPN 1000 reported Sunday that the Cubs have signed outfielder Alfonso Soriano to an eight-year contract worth approximately $136 million.
You can forget about those “A-Rod/Sweet Lou” reunion rumors now.
Wow. What an unbelievable price. Good to see the lesson has been learned from deals like Kevin Brown and Jason Giambi. No way is he worthy of an 8-year deal.
EIGHT YEARS? Eight? I’m flummoxed. Though he’ll fit in nicely with the Chicago Cubs’ albatross breeding program.
wow. for a guy who’s about to begin the ‘latter-half’ of his career, who just reached a career high in Ks, and has only an .835 career ops. For $17 mil, you should get a guy with at least an .850 career ops.
those lovable losers…
I doubt if Sweet Lou was consulted. Interesting to see how Lou and Soriano (don’t) get along.
I’m glad A-Rod’s staying.
I had thought we had seen the end of the $100+ mil contracts for a while. Sori’s good, but not that good.
Don, why do you think Piniella wasn’t consulted?
What an absolutely insane deal. Soriano can be an exciting player, but he has way too many flaws for this much money.
This is even worse than the Beltran deal because Soriano can’t play defense and Beltran is (now) a Gold Glover.
The article I read said Sori could play center for the Cubs. Ha, ha. Oh, it would be pretty funny watching Sori butchering flyballs in centerfield.
Oh, and the Yankees are somehow the ones who are ruining baseball.
this would almost surely go down as one of the worest signings of all time.
SL, I know this pains you, but you’re gonna have to forget an Alex trade…
1) Mariano publicly defended him
2) Cashman: He’s not going anywhere
3) Jeter: Said there was no problem
4) Most importantly: Alex just genuflected to Torre last week: “I’m happy to play even when batting 8th, HOF manager, et al.”
That kind of humility by Alex, when he easily had a beef that Torre was scapegoating him, is a fence mending class move.
Jason, what did you want Alex to say? “Man, that old Zucchini Nose! Batting me eighth? I’m Alex effin’ Rodriguez! I hope he’s not back because Jeter is his boy and I want to make this MY team. I’m tired of him. He humiliated me in the playoffs.”
That probably would have been honesty. And he probably would have been happy if it happened.
But he’s not going to say it.
By the way, this Soriano deal officially makes Jim Bowden the worst GM in baseball. If this doesn’t get him fired, then the Nats don’t care about winning. Teams were lining up to give Soriano 100-million-dollar deals and the Cubs give him an EIGHT-YEAR contract (!), and yet he kept Soriano last year when his team was out of the playoff race AND they had no chance of re-signing him. It’s totally and completely moronic. He could have gotten at least a trio of good prospects (including young pitching). But he instead kept him. Just a stunningly bad move that hurts his team.
By the way, this Soriano deal officially makes Jim Bowden the worst GM in baseball.
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I figured he was after the Castilla/Guzman contracts.
RE: baileywalk’s comment, “…yet he kept Soriano last year when his team was out of the playoff race AND they had no chance of re-signing him.”
When Pat Gillick was the Mariners’ GM, he did the same thing with Alex Rodriguez in his walk year, too. Obviously it would have been far smarter to trade him in 2000 instead of letting him play out the year, even though ARod was still saying the Mariners had as much a chance as any other team after he declared FA.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda.