Welcome back to the 2015 Last Word on Fantasy Baseball Guide. Over the next several months we will be releasing player profiles, projections, position rankings, and a number of other articles that will help you dominate your fantasy league this season. Whether you play rotisserie or head-to-head; whether you have a standard draft, a snake or an auction league, and whether its keeper league or a one-year deal; we have all the fantasy information you need.
For the rest of our fantasy baseball profiles and articles, please check out our Fantasy Baseball Guide Page.
Fantasy Profile: Jorge Soler, OF, Chicago Cubs
LWOS Ranking 31, Captain’s Value: $10.96
At 6’4”, 215 and only 23 years old, the Cubs have a budding superstar bat on their hands in OF Jorge Soler. A meteoric rise through the minors last year cannot be properly put into context, but here is a try (AB-AVG-HR-R+RBI): 25-.400-1-13 in Rookie Ball, 65-.415-6-35 in AA, 110-.282-8-51 in AAA and 89-.292-5-31 in the Majors. Those stats total 289 AB for .325-20-130 which are prodigious numbers for a 22 year-old at those levels. Just his MLB stats extrapolated to 500 AB are very strong for a player his age (28 HR, 61 R and 112 RBI).
As a cornerstone of a young Cubs lineup, there is some potential for struggles at times, but Soler is likely to maintain a Batting Average in the .285 range after his K% dips and re-approaches his Minor League rate which was closer to 20%. There is 30 HR power in his bat this season, but looking for 25 would be safer. Soler will never be a SB threat, but that does not mean he will not run at all, he should chip in about a half dozen bags. Subpar defense could cause him to be benched late in double-switch situations, but it is hard to hold that too much against him.
The big issue with Soler in upcoming drafts is his ADP, no one is sleeping on him. While his ADP is sitting around 105.5, which is the end of the 7th in 15-team leagues and end of the 9th in 12-team leagues, that number is on the rise and you can expect some savvy fans of his to reach up into the late 5th (15-team leagues) and the late 6th/early 7th (12-team leagues) rounds to secure his bat. You just have to ask yourself how much you are willing to paid for a young guy with big upside and what appears to be a relatively solid floor; I am targeting a line of .285 AVG-65 R-25 HR-90 RBI-5 SB.
| Year | Team | POS | G | PA | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 2014 | CHC | OF | 24 | 97 | 89 | 11 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 6 | 24 | 0.292 | 0.33 | 0.573 | 0.903 |
| 2015 Proj | CHC | OF | 530 | 474 | 67 | 25 | 84 | 4 | 48 | 119 | 0.280 | 0.343 | 0.513 | 0.856 |
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