Soriano Caves, Will be Nats Opening Day LF

With an adjustment for ballpark effects, Wilkerson would have probably been a better OF than Soriano, especially when you consider Wilkerson's decent OBP.

ditto. voted you up.

Average outfielder? He is still one of the few guys who has a shot at 30/30, thats gotta count for something. Besides, he should still have 2B eligibility in most leagues.

That is my comment above.

yeah, but 2B eligibility doesn't do a whole lot for his real life value...where he is an average OF at best.

still better than carlos beltran

An "elite 2B" ... at the plate, maybe. And so far as I know, nobody's ever gotten a hit, or drawn a walk, or struck out, etc. while playing second base (Soriano does his damndest not to draw a walk when he's actually at the plate as well, but that's another discussion). I never understood why this was such an issue, him "losing value" as a FA next year because he goes from being a great offensive player for a 2B to merely an above-average offensive OF. Everyone (and especially Soriano) seems to have forgotten that he's an atrocious second baseman, maybe the worst starting 2B in baseball. I mean, really, what good is it to be able to say, "hey, guys, I'm a second baseman, check out my offense" when you're costing the team 20 runs a season compared to the average 2B? As a GM, I'm not going to shell out cash for a shitty defensive 2B that can kind of hit (at a .283 EqA, he ain't exactly Joe DiMaggio) any more than I'm going to fork it over for a decent-hitting, (hopefully) average-fielding OF. Of course, as a GM, I wouldn't have gotten this guy on the spec that he'd suddenly want to play OF after unsuccessful conversion attempts by the Yankees and Rangers in the first place. Of course, as a GM, I wouldn't have signed Cristian Guzman. There's a lot of things Jim Bowden has done that I wouldn't have done...

Soriano finally came to his senses, though it took the biggest gun possible to do so. A player is supposed to play where his team needs him, even if it isn't his favorite position. Look at A-Rod, the player that the Yanks got in exchange for Soriano; he didn't complain at being made to move to 3rd, he just played the best 3rd baseman he could be. For that matter, look at some famous players of the past: Babe Ruth was a pretty good pitcher when his team decided they needed him at a play-every-day position and moved him into the outfield. Mickey Mantle had played nothing but shortstop in the minors, but did such a good job in the outfield that people are still trying to figure out whether Joe DiMaggio or Mantle was the best Yankee CF in history. And that same Mantle moved to 1B when his legs made it impossible to be the great CF he had been. All I can say is: Soriano ought to let the managers manage and just try to be the best LF he can be.

Not only that, but A-Rod would have actually had a legit complaint about moving to third: he's light-years ahead of Jeter defensively. Had the Yankees made Jeter play third and kept A-Rod at SS, who knows how many runs they could have saved in the past two seasons? But A-Rod did the team thing... And they say this guy's not a "true Yankee"! As for Soriano, money talked. As in, less money playing in OF, but compared to no money if he continued to act like a petulant child. Too bad it had to come to this in the first place.