Kansas City Royals: The evolution of Jorge Soler’s power

What’s behind the emergence of the Kansas City Royals outfielder as a surefire slugger? Let’s take a closer look at the emergence of Jorge Soler.

From the moment in 2012 when Jorge Soler was signed as a free agent out of Cuba, the potential has been obvious. As a member of the Kansas City Royals, that potential has finally been realized.

Just look at him. Soler is a muscular 6-4, 230 lb. man who combines power and speed in his swing. Yet when he failed across three seasons to approach the potential that was obviously in him, the Chicago Cubs traded him to the Kansas City Royals for short-term relief help.

In Kansas City the past two seasons, Soler existed in the same mode. He was a player with potential, that most cursed of attributes indicating unfulfilled expectation.

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How did that potential suddenly emerge this season into a reality that has made Soler what everybody understood all along that he could be, one of the game’s most feared sluggers? Soler Wednesday hit his 40th home run, ranking him second in the American League behind only Mike Trout. The previous night he had broken the Kansas City Royals franchise record. He surpassed his previous career-best in RBIs 72 games ago.

The answer is multi-faceted, but it begins with opportunity, which begins with health. This season represents the first one since Soler arrived in Chicago as a rookie in 2015 when he has not spent at least three weeks, and up to half a season, on the injury list. He has been sidelined for extended periods on five separate occasions, twice with oblique strains, once with a hamstring issue, once with a bad ankle and most seriously last season with a fractured toe. That one cost him half a season.

Assessing the difference between the 2019 version of career and the previous iterations and opportunity/health is the obvious starting point. Prior to this season, he had never seen more than the 1,621 pitches he looked at as a rookie. He’s already past 2,350 this season.

But it isn’t merely opportunity that’s made a slugger out of Soler. There has been actual, measurable improvement as well. It shows up in any of several statistics.

For starters, Jorge Soler is hitting the ball harder this season than he ever has. And that’s saying something considering that he came into the season with a career average exit velocity of 90 mph.

Still the average exit velocity of a ball off his bat this year is 92.6 mph. Among players with at least 300 plate appearances, that’s fourth-best in the majors, behind only Trout, C.J. Cron, and Christian Yelich.

He’s also barreling up the ball far more consistently. Soler’s barrel percentage is 16.4, substantially ahead of his previous career-best of 10.4 percent in 2016.  Nearly half of his contacts fall into the category of “hard hit.” The only five with a higher percentage are Marcell Ozuna, Josh Donaldson, Shin-Soo Choo, Kyle Schwarber and Christian Walker.

None of those percentage stats would make much difference if Soler hadn’t improved his contact rate. It’s still only on the fringes of major league average, but that’s saying something. Soler this season has fanned 26.8 percent of his plate appearances, down from nearly 33 percent last year. Not coincidentally, as his strike zone judgment has improved so has his walk rate, to 11 percent.

His chase rate – the percentage of pitches outside the strike zone that he swings at – has also declined, although not dramatically.

What Soler has most significantly learned to do – another apparent key to his improvement — is attack the “zone,” those most hittable of pitches. His zone swing rate is 68.8 percent, equaling his career-high, and his zone contact rate is 79.3 percent, a career-best.

In short, Jorge Soler is playing more, is healthier, is getting better pitches to hit and is attacking them  For any player with physical tools, that’s a virtually sure-fire path to success.