Last year wasn’t exactly the greatest year from Soriano, but we’ve come to expect the lacksadaisical attitude, nagging injuries, and overall inconsistent play from our $136 million dollar outfielder.  At the end of last season it was announced he was going to undergo some sort of knee surgery, but with more than 5 months to rehab it, he would be full strength in time for Spring Training.

Ha!  He got us.  I mean how foolish of us to think that his recovery would go smoothly:

Alfonso Soriano made his much anticipated arrival today at the end of another day of soggy workouts, and raised more than a few questions when he said his surgically repaired left knee is “maybe 80 percent or 85 percent” strength.

As he continued to speak it became apparent he meant he’s had no problems with the knee at that level of activity over the winter but won’t be sure he’s 100 percent until he tests the knee fully in fielding and base running this spring.

“Mentally I don’t feel 100 percent,” he said. “But we’ll see in how my knee is running in the field and doing some stuff I didn’t do in the Dominican.”

I guess that doesn’t sound so bad.  I mean I just figured it was a natural part of the recovery for whatever his knee surgery was after reading that Monday in the Sun-Times.  Then yesterday I was riding home from work listening to the Afternoon Saloon on ESPN radio.  Every day at 4pm they have Bruce Levine on to talk about Cubs and Sox issues.  When asked about the Soriano knee situation, he explained that insiders for the Cubs have told him that management is extremely frustrated.  Instead of rehabbing in the States, he “rehabbed” in his home country of the Dominican Republic.  The team had expectations that he would be healed by December 1 at the latest and he could start bringing the knee back to full strength.  Instead it sounds like his training regimen involved “letting it heal” far beyond the time when that was necessary.

For a guy making as much money as he makes, the Cubs need to put him on a tighter leash.  They have far too much invested in him to let him have that sort of invasive arthroscopic knee surgery and then disappear into the 3rd world for 5 months.  Whatever attempts they made to monitor him were clearly insufficient.

Is there any good news out of Mesa this year so far? With Soriano’s knee, Lilly’s injuries, and all the gaping holes in the rotation, lineup, and bullpen, it just seems like there is nothing positive to focus on.  And I don’t mean the yearly “Big Z slimmed down” crap.  We all know that’s garbage, right?

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Tags: Alfonso Soriano, Knee, Nonsense, Rehab