Alfonso Soriano: A Former Hall of Fame-Caliber Second Basemen

By Brian Holt, Senior Writer for 4thandHome.com

Remember When is a series of articles on nostalgia, really. Something to whisk you to way back to when you had that favorite player who was destined to be the greatest of all time, but something strange happened along the trip to Cooperstown.

This week, remember when... Alfonso Soriano was the most coveted second baseman in fantasy baseball, not a slightly better-than-average outfielder saddling the Cubs with a $20 million a year contract?

Just imagine, if you will, a second baseman hitting .280 with 35-plus HRs and over 100 RBI stealing as many as 43 bases in a single season! This is the kind of production fantasy managers generally only get in their dreams. But for one lucky manager in your league, it was a reality from 2002-2005.

Year	Team	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	Avg
2002	NYY	128	39	102	41	.300
2003	NYY	114	38	91	35	.290
2004	TEX	77	28	91	18	.280
2005	TEX	102	36	104	30	.268

Then, Alfonso went to Washington, where all good things go to die.

Suddenly defense became an issue and the outfield became the cure. That first season still seemed great—how can you complain about 46 home runs? But the eligibility definitely caused his value to take a hit.

Then, Soriano signed that fateful deal with the most cursed team in baseball, the Chicago Cubs. Now they’re paying all that money for this type of production:

Year	Team	Runs	HR	RBI	SB	Avg
2010	CHC	67	24	79	5	.258

I don’t know who I feel worse for, the Cubs, Soriano or those poor fantasy owners who thought they were in for a 10-year run of greatness.