Per tweet last night by Susan Slusser, Jorge Soler will sign with the Giants. Per reporting from The Athletic, it will be for 3 years, $42M, no word on any other contract terms, but there does not appear to be any opt outs. The rumor mill had it that Soler wanted three years, and the Giants eventually gave him that, though perhaps less per season.
ogc thoughts
The Giants needed to improve their 4th place hitting. They got .228/.304/.376/.680 out of their clean-up hitters (mainly Davis, Pederson, and Conforto ruining that lineup position), where the average NL 4th place hitter had .257/.330/.459/.789. Also, the Giants DH last year hit .248/.341/.448/.788, which was significantly better than the average NL DH, .245/.327/.426/.753
I averaged all six projections on Fangraphs and got .242/.333/.475/.807, which would be slightly above average for 4th place, and, more importantly, 19% better than what the Giants got out of their 4th hitter last season. And while he kills LHP (.248/.348/.517/.865), he is still about average vs. RHP (.241/.324/.451/.774). He totally plays at DH, being a vast improvement over our 4th hitter last season, and better than the Giants DH and average NL 4th hitter last season, and significantly better than the average NL DH.
Why Soler Wasn't Signed Until Now
However, this is a riskier deal than I had thought. Hearing how many homers he had, I thought he was at least an average hitter most years, but he's like the hitter version of Blake Snell, superstar for two seasons, average or worse the rest of his career seasons (and he's a 10 year veteran). He only had 1.9 fWAR and 1.8 bWAR in 2023, even though he hit 36 homers last season. At $14M per season, we are paying for around 1.5 WAR per season, and he's only had two seasons like that.
In addition, apparently he's been an injury machine, and has only had one full season (2019 when he was in 162 games and hit 48 homers) then his next most played season was last season, when he was in 137 games. In his other eight seasons, he only has one above 100 games (2015, his second season, when he was 23 YO, and got into 101 games).
Silver Linings
The good news for the Giants is that hopefully as a full time DH, he won't get all those niggling and worse injuries that kept him out of the lineup previously. And this idea has merit, as no team previously has dedicated him mostly to DH, as the Giants plan on doing. Moreover, his two most healthiest seasons were in 2019 and 2023, the seasons he hit 48 homer and 36 homers, respectively, and played in the most games in his career, first and second most games, respectively.
The Giants should also try their best to leave him off the field, as his defensive skills are horrible in the outfield, negating most of the value he brings with his bat, which, when healthy, is very healthy, his career batting line is .243/.330/.467/.797. And plugging his projection into the lineup calculator, he's a 30 run improvement (roughly 3 wins) over what we had in 2023 in cleanup (based on 150 games played; I know, based on history, not likely, so dropping it to 130 games, that's still a 25 run improvement, or 2.5 wins).
And that's what I would could his addition to the lineup as. If you look at it as replacing the Giants DH, there's little improvement, though clearly his power is different from anyone else in the lineup. But projections assume standard values, standard everything. What has changed for the Giants is that now they have a steady DH in Soler (vs. a variety of hitters), who they can slot into the cleanup spot, where they suffered from poor everything last season, and that improvement adds more than standard (most projections has him at just under 2 WAR, or about one win less than this lineup calculation).
Risky deal, but one the Giants needed to make in order to make a better case to fans that they are playoff contenders in 2024. They still need to sign someone (Matt Chapman, maybe a starting pitcher), and they should be very competitive for getting into the playoffs.
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