Source of Royals’ ‘Soler Power’? A hunger that led him to defect, chase dreams in U.S.
Interminable weeks ago now, just before sports abruptly powered down amid the pandemic, the ever-radiant Jorge Soler sat in the Royals clubhouse considering the new “Soler Power” billboard glowing at night in Westport.
Not to mention the inspiration behind it: the 48 home runs he hit in 2019 to lead the American League and shatter Mike Moustakas’ team record of 38 set in 2017.
And from where this all came.
Speaking through interpreter Luis Perez, an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the club, in an interview later translated for The Star by Arizona State journalism student Patricia Vicente, Soler spoke first of the near-term factors in his long-anticipated breakout season.
Staying healthy, finally, in what previously had been a star-crossed journey in which he had been limited to between 35 and 101 games in the four seasons since his major-league debut in late 2014 with the Chicago Cubs.
Finding a consistent approach at the plate and the right in-season workout regimen, and diet, to help sustain that.
And appearing as the Royals’ designated hitter more than in the field, he acknowledged with notable candor, “helped me with the balance” that enabled him to bypass Moustakas in a Sept. 3 game that was to be highlighted Friday via a replay on Fox Sports Kansas City. While Soler says he has no disdain for outfield and would embrace any role, it seems he sees DH as a key factor in his success.
“When I was DH-ing, I had all of the time just to focus on the next pitch and could pay attention more to the pitcher and what he was doing while other people were batting as well,” said Soler, who played in all 162 games but started just 54 in the outfield last season. “When I was playing outfield, I didn’t have the chance to have that time and make those observations because I was constantly running up and down.”
Add it all up, including his 117 RBIs, and Soler emerged as the best-yet version of a man whose potential seemed vast but long stifled by injury and gaps in his game.
When he was with the St. Louis Cardinals, new Royals manager Mike Matheny said he respected Soler and his “amazing ability” but …
“We had a pretty good idea how to get him out,” Matheny said, adding that those weaknesses “were all of a sudden his strong suits.”
But perhaps the strongest suits of a humble and team-oriented guy Matheny believes has “all the makings of a superstar-style player” are less tangible. It’s the resilient makeup that sustained Soler through the tumultuous years, and the profound hunger he harnessed to even have a chance to emerge into what he has become since his birth 28 years ago in Havana, Cuba.
That included his perilous experiences as a defector and the circumstances of his upbringing, details of which he seldom before has spoken of publicly … and that compelled nearby teammates Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield to intermittently listen on in an otherwise nearly empty room.
‘It scares you a lot’
His father, Jorge Sr., was a baker, and so the family never lacked for food, per se. But they had no money for luxuries such as new baseball equipment, so he initially played with borrowed or retread gloves and footwear.
“There was a time when I was playing games with shoes that fit me way too small,” he said. “While other athletes had metal cleats or a newer set, I was playing with some that had plastic and were too tight on my feet.”
But knowing others who had no shoes at all, he felt fortunate just to have those. And all the more so to get to board at a scholarship sports academy during the week from the time he was 12 ... with visions of Major League baseball in the United States already embedded.
“The person who scouted me when I was 6 years old … saw that I was a bigger boy,” Soler said. “He saw me and said, ‘He’s going to play baseball. He’s going to play with the national team. He’s an amazing batter and will get the recognition he deserves.’”
That man became his first coach. As much as Soler admired him, he was struck by what he considered the man’s unrealized potential. He bluntly described how that was motivation of its own.
“I got to witness first-hand what it was like for him to be one of the best but not getting the recognition he deserves because he stayed in Cuba,” said Soler, noting his belief that his coach had struggled to feed his family after his career. “That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be like him… After he finished playing ball, no one gave him a helping hand.”
All of which led to Soler applying himself with zeal at the academy, where he remembers crude facilities and bad food and trying circumstances as merely part of the opportunity.
His ability to thrive within that environment led to what he simultaneously calls “one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life” and “the hardest decision of my life” about 10 years ago.
Soler had emerged as a player to watch but stepped fully into a spotlight in 2010, when he slugged .522 to lead Cuba to a bronze medal in the World Junior Championships in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
But between the example of his first coach and frustration over being put behind a veteran by a national team coach (after missing a tryout for mandatory military training for Cuban 18-year-olds), the family resolved that Soler would defect with his father.
“It scares you a lot,” he said. “It scares you, but then you quickly realize that you don’t have any other choice … if you want to make it pro.
“If not, then you will just be another player that stays in Cuba to play. And then once you retire, you will have nothing.”
Detained, suspended ... and unbowed
They gained nothing, though, on their first attempt to leave the country. And lost plenty.
“It was six of us when we first got caught, first by a plane (sighting) and then from the (U.S.) Coast Guard when we were in the water,” he said. “They caught us before they sent us back after five days in the detainment process. Once (that happens) you get a target on your back and become a black sheep.”
More specifically, his father lost his job and Soler was suspended from the national team.
Which only stoked their resolve.
“We attempted it multiple times, but … we were always stopped a little before,” he said, later adding, “For a lot of people, it depends (on) how many times (one attempts to leave). And it also just depends on the luck one has. Everyone has different stories, and there are some players who have gone through a lot more.”
After seven months and an unspecified number of additional attempts to defect, in 2011 they reached Haiti by way of a boat to the Dominican Republic.
“At 18 years old, I was leaving everything I ever knew behind just to come,” he said, later adding, “There’s a lot of people who (take risks) by bringing you here. If you can’t produce the results that they want, then they will take away everything from you, such as housing and salary.”
After working out for teams in the Dominican, Soler ultimately was signed by the Cubs in 2012 to a nine-year, $30 million contract.
But there was a tradeoff.
As he was acclimating and navigating the ups and downs of big-league life and becoming part of a World Series championship run in Chicago in 2016 — and then being traded to the Royals for star reliever Wade Davis — he couldn’t return home until after the 2018 season.
While his father was joined in Miami by Soler’s mother and sister a few years ago, that still meant missing home and friends and funerals of grandparents with whom he felt close.
When he could finally return to Cuba for the first time, he spent 12 days there. “Surreal,” he called it.
“To be drawn back to your reality and where you came from was very tough. I saw a lot of the guys I grew up with, the guys I would wake up early in the mornings with, without shoes,” he said.
With a smile, he added, “Seeing the sugar canes had a lot of meaning for me. There were times with these guys when we would go to the fields after class to just go and eat the sugar canes.”
Call it coincidence, but that trip proved to be a preamble to his extraordinary 2019 season.
One that might have seemed to come out of nowhere after Soler’s trail of travails and setbacks.
But one that makes perfect sense when you consider his improbable road here … and the combustion it took to ignite Soler Power.