Oakland Athletics Add Veteran Righty Joakim Soria to Bullpen

Joakim Soria is the newest member of a strong Oakland Athletics bullpen, adding a veteran arm to a team looking to contend in a strong AL West.

According to Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic the Oakland Athletics have signed veteran reliever Joakim Soria to a 2-year deal, with further reporting by Fancred’s Jon Heyman stating that the contract will net Soria $15 million.

Soria, who will be going into his 12th season, spent the first half of last year with the Chicago White Sox, converting 16 saves in 21 opportunities while accruing a 2.56 ERA. In July he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, who were beefing up their bullpen heading into a playoff run. In Milwaukee Soria was no longer in the same closer role he had with the Sox, and he had a dip in performance; over 22 innings pitched for Milwaukee in the regular season he had an ERA of 4.09, though his WHIP did drop from 1.164 to 1.091.

Soria will be joining an A’s bullpen that was strong last year; the group was third in the majors in bullpen ERA, and in the latter half of the season the team experimented a lot with bullpenning, a strategy that was for the most part successful (though it’s failure in the AL Wild Card game caused some doubters to rejoice). It’s not entirely clear yet how much the A’s plan to bullpen next year, but their starting pitching is still a big question mark at this point, which might force their hand a little.

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Prior to a 2012 Tommy John surgery Soria had been one of baseball’s premier closers, appearing in 2 all star games and accruing 160 saves over five seasons. Since returning he’s been solid, but nowhere near as effective as he once was, though it looked like things were taking a turn for the better in the first half of last season.

Soria’s roughest patch came last year in September, a month where his change up really lost it’s effectiveness. Soria isn’t a power pitcher, his fastball sits around 93 MPH, so if his off-speed stuff isn’t working he’s going to run in to trouble. This wasn’t a problem through all of last season, so it’s in no mean something to panic about, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

More concerning for Soria is the decline in his ability to induce ground balls. In 2016 and 2017 he had ground ball percentages of 50.0% and 54.8% respectively; in 2018 this dove to a 35.7%. This correlates with an increase in the average launch angle of balls batters are putting into play against Soria; from 2017 to 2018 this number increased from an average of 5.1 degrees, which is very good, to an average of 15 degrees, which is creeping closer to the home run launch angle sweet spot between 25 and 30 degrees.

If Soria can get this under control he will definitely be an effective bullpen arm that can help the Oakland Athletics compete against juggernaut division rivals the Houston Astros. Because Soria has never really been a pitcher that’s relied too much on his velocity the retooling he’ll need to do this off-season shouldn’t be hindered by his age or past Tommy John, and he’s not coming off of a terrible year by any stretch. His strikeout rate last year was his best since 2009, and if he’s able to strikeout batters consistently over his short relief appearances his ground ball rate regression will becomes of an issue.