By: Alex Patt

During the 2007–2008 stretch, the Chicago Cubs had some great regular season memories, highlighted with two NL Central division titles under manager Lou Piniella. Although unable to bring a win in the post season for either of those years, it was still fun to watch Cubs baseball before being mired in the seven-year postseason drought that would follow. One of the biggest parts of that 97-win 2008 squad was our next featured #RememberThatCub; Geovany Soto.

“Geo” as many people called him (was also on his collar protector) was somewhat of a late-bloomer in terms of being a big league player. The Puerto Rico native was an 11th round pick in 2001 and made his MLB debut as a 22 year old on September 23rd, 2005 against the Houston Astros. That would be the only game he would play for the 2005 season. He would be called up again the following year for 11 games in the 2006 campaign, hitting .200/.231/.471.

Soto would make his next appearance in the Majors in late 2007 to be the junior catcher to the Cubs starting veteran Jason Kendall. In 18 games he slashed .389/.433/1.100 with three home runs and 8 RBIs; nine of his 21 hits went for extra bases. The Cubs won the division but got swept by Arizona in the NLDS, Soto being the lone bright spot as the only Cub to homer in the playoff series.

Still considered a rookie in 2008, Geo finally broke through to become the everyday starting catcher with veteran Henry Blanco backing him up. At age 25 he hit .285/.364/.868 with 23 home runs and 86 RBIs in 141 games. The 3.3 WAR player was named an NL All Star and won Rookie of the Year while finishing 13th in MVP voting. He caught a pitching staff that had an 3.87 ERA which was second best in the NL and 1.29 WHIP that was tied with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers for the best. One of his most memorable moments was his game-tying, three-run home run in the 9th inning in a game against the Brewers at Wrigley Field on September 18th, 2008. They trailed 6–2 in the 9th and would win in extras which shrunk their magic number down against 2nd place Milwaukee. He also caught Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitter against the Astros a few days prior on the 14th of that month.

After a disastrous 2008 NLDS, Soto still stuck around for three and a half more seasons. 2009 was a major let down for him putting up a .218/.321/.702 slash with 11 home runs and 47 RBIs in 102 games, going from a 3.3 WAR to 0.2 WAR. As that season when on, you could tell the frustration was getting to him when he would start slamming his bat after hitting weak popups, or striking out on bad pitches. Then in 2010 he redeemed himself with another vintage 2008-like year. He slashed .280/.393/.890 with 17 home runs in 105 games bringing his WAR back into elite range at 3.3. He missed the last bit of the regular season with injury but still impressed with his comeback year. He did not get the same attention as he didhe got in 2008 likely because the 2010 Cubs went 74–88 that year.

2011 was the last full season as a Cub for Geo, and once again he regressed from the impressive statistics from the previous year. He still hit 17 home runs, but slashed .228/.310/.721 in 125 games. Yet, Soto struck out a career-high 124 times that season. In 2012 he started as the number one catcher until being traded to the Texas Rangers on July 31st for Jake Brigham and cash. Unfortunately he was not worth much that year seeing he slashed .199/.284/.631 in 52 games. And thus quietly faded the era of Geovany Soto from the annals of Major League Baseball.

Soto was all in all one of the more productive catchers the Cubs have had in their organizational history. He is 4th on the all-time Cubs catcher list in home runs (77), 4th in OBP (.342), 3rd in OPS (.787) and 9th in hits (460). Now at age 34 he is playing in Chicago again but with the White Sox (though he has been on the DL since early this year) and has bounced around since leaving the Cubs, also playing stints with the A’s and Angels. In his first stint with the White Sox he hit career home run #100 on August 2nd, 2015 vs. the Yankees.

Do you #RememberThatCub?

Alex Patt is a contributor to Wrigley Rapport and writes and podcasts for other publications. You can follow him on twitter @chifanpatt1