Cubs catcher Geovany Soto was good enough to make the September roster. Lou Piniella tabbed him to go to the playoffs.
Now, Soto has another award to go with his PCL MVP. MiLB has honored him with the Offensive Player of the Year award.
Check the PCL leaderboard and you’ll see why. His name litters the board. Soto, who played for the Iowa Cubs, is in top 5 in batting average, rbis, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and I’m sure I’m missing some.
Not convinced? He’s got quite a glove, too. Soto only had three errors and threw out 31% of potential basestealers.
Lou Piniella likes him too:
“You’ve got to like the young man,” Piniella said. “We’ve had other kids come up here from Triple-A with high averages, but this kid has a high average, a lot of RBIs and a lot of home runs. We liked him this spring. I see a kid here who could be the No. 1 catcher next spring.”
With the recent dearth of talent at catcher, Geovany is coming at the right time. I foresee a lot of playing time for him in the bigs in 2008.