Suffice to say, Michael Soroka's 2023 did not go the way either he or the Atlanta Braves planned for it to go.
Trying to work his way back to the major leagues after two Achilles tears (necessitating three surgeries) kept him away for almost three full years, Soroka's start to spring training was delayed by a hamstring strain suffered just days before pitchers and catchers reported in February.
After opening the season in AAA Gwinnett, Soroka got his major league chance in late May, starting twice on Atlanta's west coast swing against Oakland and Arizona before returning to Gwinnett. He went back and forth between Gwinnett and Atlanta over the summer, with some speculation that Atlanta was manipulating his service time to gain one additional year of contractual control. That plan ultimately didn't work out, as a late-season injury resulted in Soroka going to the injured list, ending his season and pushing him over the service time threshold into five years.
Soroka finished with a 2-2 record in seven appearances for Atlanta (six starts), with a 6.40 ERA in 32.1 innings pitched with 29 strikeouts (8.1 K/9) and 12 walks (3.3 BB/9). In Gwinnett, he went 4-4 with a 3.41 ERA in seventeen starts, striking out 9.5 batters per nine innings.
Soroka also struggled with homers at the major league level, with nine allowed in those 32.1 innings, a rate of 2.5 HR/9. (For context, in his 2019 rookie year, he led all of the National League with only 0.7 HRs allowed per nine innings).
From a contractual perspective, Atlanta settled with Soroka for $2.8M in his first year of arbitration and then the player and team agreed to re-up for the exact same amount in 2022 and 2023, while Soroka rehabbed. He's in his final year of arbitration, projected to make only a small pay raise up to $3M (per MLB Trade Rumors, who have been pretty accurate at projecting these things over the years.)
So, why would Atlanta non-tender Soroka?
The first reason is health. Ending the season on the 60-day injured list with a right forearm injury leading to numbness in his fingers, there's a question about what the issue might be and if it's something severe enough to derail his availability for 2024.
But that's not the big thing here.
Now that he's at five years of service time, there's another complicating factor that come up besides the whole "pending free agent" thing - Any player with five or more years of service time can refuse an assignment to the minor leagues, instead making them a free agent.
This is exactly what happened with Yonny Chirinos in Tampa Bay - He was DFA'd right days before he hit five years of service time and Atlanta claimed him on waivers. It also explains why Chirinos got so much extended run in Atlanta before an injury forced him to the injured list - if they were to option him to the minors, he could instead elect free agency.
And indeed, this is the scenario Atlanta faces with Soroka. With five years of service time, he can elect free agency at any time if the team tries to send him to AAA, allowing him to leave Atlanta without compensation. And based on his regular season performances, it's not clear that Soroka's "stuff" has returned to the necessary level to stick in the rotation for an entire season.
Because of that, it's in Atlanta's best interest to non-tender Soroka and try to re-sign him to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. If he doesn't pitch well enough to make the Opening Day roster, the minor league deal means that he'd start in Gwinnett and could still be brought up if he either showed the requisite improvement or if the Braves had an injury issue in their starting rotation - which, as we learned from this season, could happen at any time and in multiples.
But that's a risky plan, right?
It absolutely is, yeah. There's probably several teams that would offer him a standard major league contract and a rotation spot, simply in hopes that he continues to get closer to the "Maple Maddux" form he showed prior to the 2020 Achilles tear.
And so, while there's several in the national or Atlanta media that have predicted Soroka gets non-tendered, I'm thinking he gets offered either a 2024 deal with a club option on it or Atlanta takes him to arbitration.
Retain him, stick him in the rotation out of spring, and if it's not working, Atlanta can always move him for a minor bullpen piece or prospect during the regular season. Because at this point, with Kyle Wright already out for 2024, the Braves need as many high-quality rotation options as they can get, and if there's a chance Soroka makes it 90% or even 80% of the way back to his 2019 All-Star form (where he went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA and was the runner-up for NL Rookie of the Year), you've got to take that.
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