MLB Player Profile: Joakim Soria
The Kansas City Royals do not always set their eyes upon the precocious talent playing domestically. They always look around to discover a player with potential knack from around the world. Joakim Soria is one of the players that the Kansas Royals boast
to possess who belongs to Mexico and an inseparable part of this Major League Baseball team for a while now.
This right-handed relief pitcher was born on May 18, 1984. Having remained the part of his country’s baseball teams like Diablos Rojos del México and Yaquis de Obregón, he soon attracted the attention of the Kansas City Royals which drafted the left-handed
pitcher back in 2006 when he was 22-year-old.
And ever since he stepped there, Joakim Soria has barely looked back. He accredits this to his former coaches Fernando Valenzuela and Ted Higuera. Coming all the way from Mexico, it certainly takes a player a considerably long period of time to adjust himself
with the new settings and to win the confidence of the influential coaches.
“They didn't talk too much about mechanics, or anything, because many of the guys who played on the Mexican team have a lot of time in the big leagues. But they talked about trust and confidence and all of that stuff, so we learned some of that from them.
Very valuable, it always is, to regard those kind of guys.”
Having shown how far could he go in this game when he was drafted in 2006, the very next year – in 2007, he got an incredibly amazing opportunity to formally start his Major League Baseball career where he stunned the unsuspecting fans with a 2.48 ERA, having
17 wins to his credit with a 2-3 record, making him a big name for the team.
Once his career saw a distinctly meteoric rise, something a fan will not see with sheer incredulity anymore given his consistency of performance, the Kansas City Royals struck a big deal of $8.75-million in 2008 to further extend his contract for the team
for the next three years. His performance improved a great deal to make him a natural choice for the deal.
So much so that he was unanimously elected for the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, becoming the only player of the Kansas City Royals to be nominated for this distinguished award after his predecessor Mike MacDougal who was named for it in 2008.
Despite the injuries that plagued the player in 2009, he ended the season with the impressive 30 saves.
Although his 2009 did see a bit of ups and downs and eventually ended with a rather positive note with his having won 30 saves, he was once again selected for the 2010 All-Star game. That was certainly an achievement for him to take pride in. Calling baseball
his life when asked to sum up what the game meant to him, Soria is young and energetic enough to achieve more in his dynamic career.
He has played 292 games with 309.1 innings that he has pitched. Having had 333 strike-outs so far, he has a 1.05 WHIP, something that is indeed not easy to attain. All the same, his ERA remains 2.44 which in itself is a great testament to his improving performance.
The Kansas City Royals closer has, however, had a bit of struggling period in 2011. He has only managed to win 5 games so far in the 54 games that he has appeared with 54.1 innings pitched, and having 4.47 ERA. Despite that, he looks for a better time ahead.
A player of his calibre can always do something different to compensate for what has gone wrong and improve over-night with some competitive performances.
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