The Angels announced that they’ve signed catcher Geovany Soto to a one-year, Major League contract. He’ll presumably pair with young catcher Carlos Perez as the Halos’ primary catching tandem. MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez tweets that Soto will earn $2.8MM in 2016.
Soto, 33 in January, hit .219/.301/.406 in 210 plate appearances with the White Sox in 2015. While his 30 percent strikeout rate limited his batting average and on-base percentage, Soto walked at a healthy 10 percent clip and provided the ChiSox with defensive value as well. The former National League Rookie of the Year (2008) caught 30 percent of attempted base-stealers and rated 5.6 pitch-framing runs above average, per StatCorner.com’s catching report. Soto has never consistently stacked up to the Rookie of the Year production, he’s been a roughly league-average bat dating back to the 2010 season over the course of 1703 plate appearances.
Gonzalez adds (via Twitter) that with Soto’s signing, which comes just one day after former Angels catcher Chris Iannetta signed with the division-rival Mariners, the Angels sit about $20MM south of the luxury tax threshold. Considering the number of holes that new general manager Billy Eppler needs to fill — catcher, third base, second base, left field chief among them — the addition of Soto represents a low-cost upgrade that will allow the club to spend to address other areas on the roster. While the upcoming Dec. 2 non-tender deadline represents an avenue for most teams to save some cost, outfielder Collin Cowgill ($1MM arbitration projection) is the Angels’ only true non-tender candidate. As such, trades figure to be a more plausible means of creating some separation if the Angels do indeed wish to come in beneath the $189MM cutoff.
Beats the heck out of going to get a drink every time Ianetta walked up to the plate.
Lol!
We sign Soto over Iannetta for half the price. Loving it.
Steamer600, which assumes 450 plate appearances for each catcher, projects 2016 WAR of 2.1 for Chris Iannetta and 0.9 for Geovany Soto. Iannetta’s contract reportedly is for $4.25 million (plus up to $1.75 million in incentives) while Soto’s is reportedly for $2.8 million.
Soto won’t provide much offense. Why not Dioner Navarro?
i feel like the angels are probably hoping perez continues developing into more of the #1 guy, with soto as load-share and fallback support. so soto’s signing to be the lighter end of a catching tandem, same as he was last year with the white sox, whereas dioner is hoping to be the #1 guy of somebody’s tandem himself. and might also cost more. these are just guesses, though
He’s prolly more expensive
I think after Iannetta they’re going back to a better defensive backstop. Perez has a cannon. It was obvious the Angels offensive issues but they were also not too great on defense. That alone could’ve helped them at least finish past the Astros.
Thank goodness he gone….
Good move
I wonder if the angels can make a trade to get Lawrie from the A’s or Plouffe from the twins
With the 24 million in payroll wasted on Josh Hamilton we have to go cheap for another couple years therefore we can’t afford Freese at 3 years 30 million.
Brett Lawrie or Danny Valencia would be great options at 3rd but I don’t think Oakland would trade either one to the Angels! Both are under control for 2 more years and both have a projected arbitration salary for next year around 4 million. This would give us the money to sign a left fielder and some more relief pitchers! Have to go with Giavatolla at 2nd for this season and if he doesn’t get better defensively then replace for 2017 when we have more payroll flexability! Feedback?
at least he can make the throw to second.. Iannetta bobbles it every time somebody steals