Is Soriano the worst fielding outfielder in history?

i think chris duncan is worse. you cant rely on him for anything.

He's not a DH candidate and the fact that he's playing in the NL on with a lot of years left on his contract makes that a moot point. Soriano has never been great defensively at any position. What he lacks in the outfield with missed fly balls, bad routes to pick up balls, and the drop off in speed that he once had he makes up for with his arm. Anyone trying to run on a close play where Soriano has a chance to throw them out is making a mistake. He's still a very dangerous hitter and takes advantage of more first pitch fastballs than most players in the league, but his defense is not bad enough to say he's only a DH.

If you want to talk about a good hitter that is wasted in the NL playing a position look no further than a bit north to the fat ugly jerk playing first for the Brewers. I don't see it happening, but the Brewers would be better off trading Fielder to an AL team that can use him as a DH unless he drops all that weight.

Little Known Fact:

When with the Washington Nationals, Soriano was close or at the top of MLB in outfield assists. This was his first season in the outfield.

Frankly, Soriano is a pretty decent outfielder. Yes, there are plenty of better fielding ones, but he;s not horrible. Besides, he's not going to be DH so long as he sticks with the Cubs.

Not even close. Although fly balls can be a bit of an adventure, he does at least have a fairly decent arm (good enough to be among the league leaders in outfield assists)Soriano's biggest problem as an outfielder is the path he takes to fly balls. He seems more concerned about looking good at times, taking his time to get to balls so that he is moving when he catches them rather then running full out to the spot, getting in position and making the play. I think this is more laziness then lack of ability.

Some of the other people have mentioned some outfielders that were pretty bad, and I agree with all of them, but will add to the list.

Jose Canseco.

Dave Kingman.

Greg Luzinski.

Ted Williams. (great hitter, but never cared one bit about his defense.)

Lou Novikoff. Not well known - played left field for the Cubs, 1941-1944. Once stole third base while it was occupied because"he got a good jump". Most importantly, was convinced that the ivy in Wrigley Field was poison ivy, and refused to go near it to make a play.(So many fun stories from the war years.)

edit - ty Jen. I think that would qualify as what Lou calls a "Cubbie Occurence". The first in a long line of them I'm afraid.

Keep the Faith! We're overdue.

I think you take a look at the numbers: ( you might want to look at Felix Pie's numbers for the same time period)

21 outfield assists over the last 2 years

I'm pretty sure that over shadows the amount of errors he may have, considering he started in the Major Leagues as an infielder.

So, no he is not the worse outfielder the Cubs or any team has right now.

Soriano isn't even the worst fielding outfielder among current players, let alone of all time. Soriano's only got 2 errors all season, which for this point in the season is about average for outfielders. Justin Upton already has 6, which leads all ML outfielders. Also keep in mind, his fielding might not be the greatest, but he does have one of the best arms in the OF, in his last 2 seasons he's had 41 assists from left field. If I remember correctly, that leads all left fielders over that time period.

As bad as he is there's a couple of Hall of Famers that were worse. Soriano's fielding percentage as an outfielder is .974. By comparison Reggie Jackson, who led the AL outfielders in errors 5 times, was .967 and Lou Brock, who led the NL outfielders in errors 7 times, was .959.

Well he is a converted 2nd baseman, and he never wanted to be an outfielder anyways. The worst outfielder in history is probably Barry Bonds over the last 5 years. Still no excuse for Soriano....we're paying him too much for that.

Who cares? He is getting paid to hit and to bat in the runners already on base.

What determines great outfield defense, anyway?

Range, or a better than average throwing arm, or the ability to read fly ball trajectories and to be standing and waiting for the ball to come down, ala Willie Mays?

Sheesh, some people are never satisfied.

There are worse than him, look at Adam Dunn. I don't remember Soriano being this bad out there last year, I checked and he had six errors last year and he's up to two right now.

But they don't put these guys there for their defense. As long as Soriano continues to out-hit his mistakes, I'll take it.

Edit: Fozzy re: Lou Novikoff - that is hilarious! I hadn't heard that before, thanks for the laugh!

hes not there to catch fly balls hes there to hit balls

and since the cubs have no DH (because of the whole National League thing) hes gotta play left field