Soler Eclipse

Wow!  This first entry turned out to be WAY bigger than I anticipated!  In all honesty though, it accomplished exactly what I was hoping for in terms of getting to know the card and the player!  Hopefully you stick around to the end, even if to tell me there is too much going on here!  

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which card to profile first.  Should it be a big name player?  One of my personal favorites?  A high value card?  Or possibly one of the cards that goes for one or two dollars these days?  

Every time I thought about it, I kept going back to the 2013 Jorge Soler card.  I am not a big Soler fan by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something about that card that captures what I love about the Inception brand.  

Without any further preamble, let me jump into my analysis of the card as a whole:

 Player History:

Admittedly when I started this project, one of the biggest mysteries to me was going to be how I would get to know the players on the cards.  I know the name of Inception subjects a lot of the time (but often I have never heard of them!), but usually it is only in the vague sense of knowing them as a talked-about-prospect.  So I was excited to actually take time to sift through the endless amount of information out on the internet to see what I see. 

But in truth, there was a lot of trepidation on my part because there is so much information available.  There are people who do this kind of stuff for a living or as an incredibly passionate hobby, and have collected/analyzed more information that I could ever consume.  So the question became “what do I put in this little blog?”  

The simple answer for me was to just start with some basic stats and then look for scouting reports.  I have to admit, I was absolutely fascinated by the things I read about Jorge Soler.  I started taking notes and got through two pages before I realized that I was biting off more than I could chew and just needed to get some stuff typed out.  

So what I will try and do is compile a basic story (stories are so much more interesting than just numbers for most of us!) and weave in some statistics when and where I can.  We’ll see how it turns out!  All of the information about Soler for this blog comes from sites such as: MLB.com, MiLB.com, foxsports.com and baseballreference.com.  

I will start the story of Jorge Soler by mentioning the fact that he was the third ranked prospect in the Cubs organization going into both the 2013 and 2015 seasons.  As  I hope to show, this fact explains a lot about Soler’s career path.  One that, to this point, is characterized by a sense of hope and disappointment.

Soler defected from Cuba in 2011 and shortly thereafter signed a 9 year, $30 million contract with the Cubs.  One of the big reasons for the contract was his play for the Cuban National Team. He was on the team in 2010 that won the bronze medal in the 2010 World Junior Championships.  

The basic outlook on Soler was that he was a big man with a big bat.  Royals Outfielder coach, Rusty Kuntz was quoted as saying “He’s just a very big person.  He’s built like a tight end.”  Indeed, Soler is 6’4” and weighs between 215 and 225 pounds.  No doubt the phrase “physical specimen” appeared on a number of scouting reports.  

Other comments about Soler’s game from when he first signed:

“He’s a strong man with elite bat speed, and this year he’s showcased an understanding of the strike zone that has held as he’s advanced levels.”

“Soler is a good athlete who runs well for a corner-outfield profile but he isn’t an impact on the base paths. He has a strong arm, which, coupled with his above-average athleticism, can be an impact profile in right.”

“Afield, Soler will showcase his arm at any given opportunity, and it’s a good one. If he’s on the field he’ll do things with his bat and his arm that will excite. If he puts it together he’s a perennial All-Star.”

Obviously the perception was that he had some major (and major league) potential, even though “Soler is generally regarded as an average to below-average defensive player.”

So when he made his debut on August 27, 2014 against the Reds, his stat line of going 2-4, with a home run and two RBIs was not surprising to many people.  In just a few days of service, Soler became the first player to amass at least one RBI and/or one extra-base hit in each of his first eight career games in over 70 years. The Philadelphia Athletics' Buddy Blair was the last to do so, in 1942. He also reached base safely in his first nine career post-season plate appearances, becoming the first player in major league history to do that. The previous Cubs overall post-season record was held by Hack Wilson, who reached safely in seven-straight plate appearances in the 1929 World Series.

In the minor leagues, Soler’s stats looked like this:

166 Games, 28 Home Runs, .303 Batting Average, .379 OBP with 239 Put Outs and 6 Errors

In the time since he debuted, his professional stats have been roughly similar:

2011 Games, 27 Home Runs, .258 Batting Average, .328 OBP with 257 Put Outs and only 4 Errors. 

So where is the disappointment I mentioned?  And why was he traded to the Royals on December 7th, 2016 for relief pitcher Wade Davis?  The simple answer is injuries.

The list of injuries and DL stints for Soler is pretty long, too long to go into here.  Of note, he missed a large chunk of games in 2013 with a left shin fracture, and then missed another chunk of games in 2015 with a nagging hamstring strain.  It just seems injury after injury have derailed his development from raw talented prospect to productive everyday-professional.  

There have also been issues with temperament and attitude, Soler once having been benched for not hustling to first on a ground ball. 

So in the end, what to make of Jorge Soler?  It seems like he is an extremely athletic, talented player with a ton of potential if it is all harness and channeled correctly.  Hopefully his fresh start in Kansas City will be the type of thing to bring back the excitement that so many people had at the beginning of his career!

Look of the Card:

Of the four years that Inception baseball has been produced, the 2013 is absolutely my favorite in terms of how the card looks.  I don’t know what the official name of the background color of the card is, but I call it cobalt in my mind (if you happen to know anything more specific please let me know).  The clouds behind the player with the cobalt overlay give this set a truly magic appearance.  

The way the body of the player fades into the bottom of the card gives it a true Field of Dreams feel.  Call me crazy, but I think that’s why I like the Soler card so much.  The image of Soler is him jogging (presumably into the dugout at the end of an inning), and it reminds me of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the Black Sox appearing out of the corn field to play on Ray Kinsella’s diamond. 

As for the overall look of the Soler card, I think the combination of the Cubs blue (another color I would like to know the specific name of), combined with the silver sunglasses, glove in front of the jersey and the jogging posture really makes the card stand out.  There is a real balance to the color scheme.

Honestly it gives me a sense of the way baseball players used to be seen: larger than life, standing out, with a real presence.  That’s what Soler has on this card, presence. 

If Soler was smiling in the photo, the image would be almost too perfect for the Field of Dreams analogy! The look on his face really gives the impression that this game is serious business.  That the competition matters and it’s more than just a game.  That line of thinking runs a bit contrary to the vibe of Field of Dreams, but hey, I am working with what I have!

As for the signature itself, it is a little lacking but far from the worst I have ever seen.  As you can tell from the picture, it looks like it says “J Sole.”  It would have been nice if he had put the final letter in his name, but I am not someone who criticizes athletes for their signing very often.  It has to be pretty weak for me to be upset!  The only other real “flaw” is that the signature is a little off center, as he signed covering his legs/crotch area instead of in the middle of the card.  Regardless, it is still an on-card autograph of a professional baseball player…something I really only dreamed about as a kid!

Card Value:

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to include this section as part of the project is because I am constantly amazed at the fluctuation of prices within the Inception set.  Some guys - obviously - are always going to be top dollar getters (Bryant in particular) and some will be of minimum value unless something crazy happens.  But everyone in between has some amazing roller coaster values.  Someone even recently commented to me recentlyabout how frustrating it is for them that Inception cards seem to lose so much value so quickly as compared to price of buying a box or into breaks.  And that’s actually one of the biggest reasons I chose Inception as a set to chase: for the most part there is great value for low budget collectors like me!

Within the sets, there seem to be different tiers of values.  Tiers such as $1-$3 guys, $5-$10 guys, $10-20 and on up to the multiple hundred dollar guys (fortunately there are only a couple).   And this is not even considering the parallels for the most part - my focus as a collector is getting the base versions as often as possible, though some times that is more difficult than a parallel (looking at Puig in particular on this one!). 

  

This was one area of the project that I thought would be a little easier and straightforward, considering it’s mostly dealing with numbers and facts.  I was right in that after only a few minutes of research, I felt I had done what I could.  But it is dissatisfying in that I can’t find the simple data that I want, going back as far as I want, as easily as I want.  First world problem, I know.  Regardless, here is what I have found:

As of the writing of this article, the lowest Buy It Now option on eBay (all of these are for ungraded copies) is $14.24.  The highest asking price is $83.74 for the base card.  The base card.  Keep in mind that recently a parallel that is numbered /5 sold for $43.  Going back to October 25th on eBay, 8 copies of this card have been sold with the price range being anywhere from $5.50 to $15.  

On COMC.com (Check Out My Cards), 21 copies have sold in the last four years (since the release of the card), with the highest sale being $42.24.  The price range on this site is from $13.24 to $60.  

Honestly, I feel like the wide range of asking prices and sale prices for Soler mirror the up and down view of his playing ability.  The potential is absolutely there and so people are always willing to bet a little bit on him, but the track record has been disappointing thus far and so the demand has not been exceedingly great.