Soriano Gets 136 Million

This is my first post on this blog… and amazingly enough it is not Yankee related (though we’ll get to plenty of Yankee stuff after this). ESPN and other sources are announcing that Soriano has gotten an 8-year, 136 million dollar contract from the Cubs. This winter promised to be filled with absurd and ultimately regretable contracts, but this is truly amazing. The benchmark for this deal seems to be Beltran’s 120 million dollar deal which is interesting… because despite Beltran being a superior all around player to Soriano… he is still overpaid. (The Yankees could have signed him for 7 years, 100 million and I am still glad they didn’t)

Soriano is not a 17 million dollar a year player right now and he is already 31 and destined to decline fairly soon. His OBP is poor for an elite player (.351) and he doesn’t have a position defensively. Perhaps he can become a plus outfielder in time, but to expect him to come right in and play CF at a high level is a reach. A 136 Million reach. The cubs really expect a player whose game is entirely predicated off of fast hands and legs to be just as good when he’s 39 as he is now?