By: Alex Patt

The next #RememberThatCub features a guy who was both exciting and frustrating at the same time. His power was remarkable and he got paid the big bucks from former GM Jim Hendry to hopefully win the team a title. We are talking about Alfonso Soriano.

Soriano was one of the big moves made by Hendry prior to the 2007 season, when the Tribune wanted to spend the cash to bring a 66-win team back to contention to build selling value. Soriano was an eight year veteran at the time and was coming off a huge 2006 with Washington in which he slashed .277/.351/.911 with 46 homers, 41 stolen bases and 6.1 bWAR. On November 20th, 2006 the Chicago Cubs signed their largest free agent contract in history as they agreed with Soriano on an eight-year, $136 million deal.

“We won 66 ballgames. We darn sure better be aggressive.” -Jim Hendry on signing Soriano

His first two years of being a Cub helped lead the team to back-to-back division titles in 2007 and 2008. He slashed .291/.340/.888 with 62 homers, 145 RBI in 224 games in 07–08, which saw two all star appearances. His 2008 all star nod was his seventh straight trip to the mid-summer classic. While he started his career as a second baseman primarily, he was moved permanently to left field joining the Cubs, and his stolen base game went down a bit since his early days with the Yankees, Rangers and Nationals. He was never known for his outfield defense seeing his career negative dWAR, but his bat was what he was signed for. A fun note is that Soriano hit a big home run in San Francisco in 2007 in the All Star Game. Fans overall were happy with the free agent slugger his first two years and were excited to have him further down the road.

By 2009, Soriano was making $17 million a year then up to $18 and $19 million a year by 2010–2012. The team started taking a fall downwards from contention and his numbers began to take dips. From 2002–2008 he was averaging roughly 36 home runs, .865 OPS, .333 OBP, 132 Ks per season. In 09' he dipped to 20 homers and a .241/.303/.726 slash which caused a lot of frustration among fans, not to mention being a -1.6 player. His .726 OPS was the lowest of his career in a season with 100+ games. His 2010 and 2011 seasons 24 and 26 home run seasons which was respectable in that category but only slashed .244/.289/.759 in 2011 which for a guy making $19 million that year was tough to take. He was a -0.2 bWAR player in 2011.

It was at the age of 36 in 2012, the first year of the Theo regime that Soriano had one of his most productive years as a Cub. The 2012 Cubs lost 101 games that year, but Soriano at least provided some entertainment. In 151 games, the most he played in one season as a Cub he slashed .262/.322/.821 with 32 home runs, 101 RBIs, 1.8 bWAR and 117 wRC+. His home run total was the second highest as a Cub and his RBIs was the first time he reached 100+ as a Cub. Sure it was not an MVP season by league standards but it certainly better than his stretch from 2009–2011.

It was speculated that at some point Soriano would be traded in attempts to simply dump his large contract that still had $18 million to be paid in 2013 and 2014. He began the 2013 season in a Cubs uniform hitting 17 home runs in 93 games with a .254/.287/.754 slash and 89 Ks at the age of 37. On July 26th, 2013 he was traded to the team he began his career with, the Yankees for Corey Black to dump his salary off.

Soriano’s Cubs career statistically can be summed up as follows: .264/.317/.812 with 181 home runs, 526 RBIs and a 9.5 bWAR in 889 games. He played in 125 games the rest of 2013 and to start 2014 before he was released by the Yankees. He retired after his release which ended his career at the age of 38. He finished with 412 home runs in 16 seasons.

Do you #RememberThatCub?

Alex Patt is a contributor to Wrigley Rapport, and other podcasts and publications. You can follow him on twitter @Chifanpatt1