KC Royals slugger Jorge Soler dubbed team’s coolest player

MLB’s official website named Jorge Soler the coolest player on the KC Royals. It’s pretty hard to argue with their logic.

Most would agree that Jorge Soler is a cool dude. According to MLB.com, he’s the coolest player on the KC Royals.

In a recent article naming the coolest player on each MLB team, Soler was given the award for the Boys in Blue. “Sometimes, quiet is cool. And hitting 48 homers without hardly anyone noticing at all is definitely both quiet and cool,” Will Leitch wrote. This is a good point, as it’s true that Soler doesn’t gain nearly as much attention nationally as he should. Some of that may be by design, though.

Soler is a soft-spoken player. He goes about his routine, shows up to the ballpark, serves as a designated hitter and destroys baseballs. There isn’t a ton of flash to his game. No diving plays in the outfield. No flamboyant celebrations. No Twitter trash-talking. Soler may not be a superstar, but his 2019 season was still one of the best in the league.

Playing in all 162 games for the first time in his career (which is an accomplishment in and of itself), Soler posted a .265/.354/.569 line while clobbering the aforementioned 48 home runs. He also struck out a whopping 178 times, but the power numbers and on-base ability were more than enough to make up for it. Soler’s second half should provide even more hope for the future.

In the final 71 games of the season, Soler hit .299 with a .411 OBP. His 1.076 OPS would’ve finished third in the entire MLB had it been a full season’s worth of playing time. After walking 28 times in his first slate of the season (91 games), Soler raised that number to 45 despite playing 20 fewer contests in the second half. He was a top hitter in the league for months, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

Despite looking for a long-term contract, Soler was forced to settle for a one-year, $7.3-million deal for the 2020 season. I suppose that’s a decent consolation prize for a designated hitter with poor instincts in the outfield, no baserunning prowess and a sky-high strikeout rate. While Soler is a flawed player, his strengths should parlay into a three- or four-year agreement if he can replicate his 2019 performance.

Jorge Soler is cool. On a KC Royals team stuck in a rebuild for at least the next year-or-so, he very well may be the coolest player on the squad.