Alfonso Guilleard Soriano (born January 7, 1976) is a Dominican-American former professional baseball left fielder and second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, and Chicago Cubs, and in Nippon Professional Baseball for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.
Soriano began his professional career with Hiroshima in 1996, but signed with the Yankees as a free agent in 1998 and was assigned to play in minor league baseball. The next year, he was the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the All-Star Futures Game, and made his MLB debut for the Yankees, with whom he would win two American League championships. The Yankees traded Soriano to the Rangers after the 2003 season, and the Rangers traded Soriano to the Nationals after the 2005 season. He signed a contract as a free agent with the Cubs before the 2007 season. The Cubs traded Soriano to the Yankees in 2013, and the Yankees released him in 2014.
Soriano was a seven-time MLB All-Star, and won the All-Star Game MVP Award in 2004. He won the Silver Slugger Award four times. He is one of only six players in the 40–40 club, achieving the feat in 2006. He played primarily as a second baseman for the Yankees and Rangers before being converted to an outfielder with the Nationals. Soriano is one of only 58 major league players to hit 400 or more career home runs, and was seventh among active players in home runs at the time of his retirement.
Hiroshima Toyo Carp (1996–1997)
Soriano began his professional baseball career in Japan with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, training at their Carp Academy for Dominican players. Soriano spent 1996 playing in Japan in the minor Western League. In 1997, he was promoted to the varsity team, and, wearing uniform number 74, he appeared in nine games, batting .118 (2 for 17) with two walks.
Soriano disliked the intense Japanese practice schedule, and the Carp denied him a salary increase from $45,000 to $180,000 per year. Like Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu, who had previously left Japan to play in the United States, Soriano hired sports agent Don Nomura to help his situation. After first attempting to void Soriano's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) contract by unsuccessfully arguing that the player was legally a minor when he signed it, Nomura advised him, like Nomo, to retire from NPB and pursue a career in MLB. This prompted Carp executives to file an injunction against Soriano, and to send letters to MLB teams demanding that they cease all negotiations with him. After the Nomo case, NPB officials had amended the Working Agreement without consulting any MLB officials in an attempt to prevent the situation from recurring. Since MLB had not agreed to any changes to the agreement, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig declared that MLB would recognize Soriano as a free agent on July 13, 1998 and the Carp backed down.
Soriano signed as a free agent with the New York Yankees in 1998, starting his career as an infielder, first as a third baseman, and then moving over to second base. Soriano was named to the All-Star Futures Game in 1999. He won the game's most valuable player award after hitting two home runs in the contest.
He played in New York for five seasons. His first hit in MLB came in 1999 when he hit a game-winning home run against Norm Charlton of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He finished in third place for Rookie of the Year honors in 2001. In the World Series that year, he hit the go-ahead home run off Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling in the seventh game, but Arizona won anyway when Luis Gonzalez hit his series-winning single on a cut fastball by closer Mariano Rivera.
In 2002, Soriano became the second Yankee in franchise history to record 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in the same season (the first being Bobby Bonds in 1975), then repeated the feat in 2003. Also in 2002, he led the American League with 696 at bats, 209 hits, 92 extra base hits, 41 stolen bases, 128 runs and set a Yankees' team record for most at bats (696) and most strikeouts (157) in a season.
In 2003, Soriano set the record for most home runs to lead off a game in a season with 13, and for the second straight year, led the league in at bats, and finished in the top five for base hits, doubles, home runs, stolen bases, and strikeouts. In 2003 he again led the major leagues in power-speed number (36.4).
In 2004, the Yankees traded Soriano to the Texas Rangers, along with minor leaguer Joaquin Árias for Alex Rodriguez and cash amounting to $67 million of the $179 million remaining on Rodríguez' contract.
On May 8, 2004, Soriano had six hits in nine innings—the first Texas Ranger to do so—in a 16–15, 10-inning victory over the Detroit Tigers. The game featured an hour-long fifth inning, where Detroit scored eight runs in the top half of the inning to take a ten-run lead over the Rangers, only to see Texas score ten runs in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game, the largest deficit ever overcome by the Rangers and tying an MLB record for most runs in an inning by two teams. That same year, Soriano was elected to the All-Star Game as the starting second baseman. He hit a three-run home run off Roger Clemens in the first inning and was named the MVP of the game.
In 2005, he finished sixth in the AL for stolen bases, and third for extra base hits (as well as eighth in strikeouts). He led the major leagues in power-speed number (32.7).
On December 7, 2005, Soriano was traded to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Brad Wilkerson, Terrmel Sledge, and minor league pitcher Armando Galarraga. On February 10, 2006, Soriano set a record for the highest salary ever awarded in arbitration, receiving $10 million, even though he lost his request of $12 million. The previous high had been set in 2001 by Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves when he earned $8.2 million. The Nationals offered Soriano a five-year, $50-million extension, but Soriano rejected the offer. Soriano and his agent Diego Bentz instead opted to open contract negotiations during the off-season, so that he would become a free agent.
On March 20, 2006, Nationals manager Frank Robinson inserted Soriano in the lineup as the left fielder. Soriano, who since 2001 had played exclusively at second base, refused to take the field, and the Nationals organization threatened him with disqualification, which would have meant forfeiture of his salary, and he would not have received credit for service time in fulfillment of the obligations of his contract. With his contract's service terms officially still unfulfilled, he would then have been ineligible for free agency at season's end. Two days later, Soriano relented and played in left field for the Nationals in their exhibition game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Robinson indicated that he considered Soriano's move to left field to be permanent and would not consider moving Soriano back to second base at any point during the season. In his comments following that game, Soriano indicated that he would accept his new position without further argument. As the season got underway, Soriano began to enjoy his new position, and by the All-Star break he led the league in outfield assists. Soriano made his fifth consecutive All-Star team and became only the third man to start All-Star games for both leagues at two different positions.
On August 25, a week after reaching 30–30, he became the fastest man in baseball history to reach 200 home runs and 200 stolen bases, reaching the mark in 929 games (breaking the previous record of 1,053 games held by Eric Davis). He held it until 2026, when Ronald Acuña Jr. achieved it in 904 games.
In September, he completed his 20th outfield assist, becoming the only player in baseball history with 40 home runs, 40 stolen bases, and 20 assists.
On September 16, Soriano stole second base in the first inning to become the fourth player to join the 40–40 club, after Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez. Many considered Soriano's 40–40 season to be the only one "clean", as Canseco, Bonds and Rodriguez were all involved in the steroid controversy. Soriano was also the only one of the four to reach the feat while playing at home. Six days later, he became the first player to reach 40 home runs, 40 stolen bases and 40 doubles in one season.