As anyone knows from PSD I am not the biggest fan of Soto. I think Soto's season is driven by the fact that he is hitting 8th most of the season and in doing so isn't exactly seeing a lot of strikes hence increasing his walk rates from 13% to nearly 17%. Soto for sure has great discipline, but even look at players like Theriot. Who when put in the 8th spot walk a shit load more than in the top spot. As you move Soto up in the order he doesn't hit the ball nearly as well. His OBP in the 5 spot for his career is .319, and his OPS is 778. A far cry from the 849 he gets in the 8 hole. His stat's in the 6 hole also aren't as nice giving him only a 786 OPS.
Then there is the leverage stats. Soto his fantastic when the game doesn't matter.
In low leverage situations (according to B-R.com) Soto has hit for a whopping .283/.381/.533/.914 line for his career. That's crazy good, but of course a HR when you are down by 10 isn't all the meaningful. Basically low leverage is games where there is no pressure.
In high leverage situations Soto hits a little bit differently. For his career he sits at .233/.333/.360/.693, which is a far cry from what he does in low leverage situations. So basically he hits like Albert Pujols when the game isn't on the line, and like Ryan Theriot when it is on the line.
WPA is a nice stat that shows how much a player adds towards win probability, and he currently sits at .44 on the season. So he has helped win just under one game above average. There is a stat called clutch and he is currently last in the majors in clutch. So basically he has been the least clutch player in baseball this year (second most is Derrek Lee, and you wonder why we can't win?) Soto is a very good catcher, but people act as though he is on the same level of Mauer and McCann and he just simply isn't. Soto is in the conversation for top 5 with Posey, VMart, and Santana. McCann and Mauer are on a whole different level though.
So after I got sidetracked and didn't really answer the question. Would I give Soto an extension? No. Not after his 2009 season, where he was terrible. I would rather just go through arby and give him maybe 6 this year, 9 next and 12 in 2013. Giving him a 3 year deal at 14 million per is just well Special person, as he MIGHT make 14 million the third year of arbitration if he plays like this year but I doubt it.
Unless you are talking a 6 year 40 million dollar deal I want no part of him extending him this second.
