What is wrong with Geovany Soto?

I am not a proponent the old baseball cliche "hitting is contagious", however anyone who has seen the last roadtrip where the cubs scored 5 runs in 6 games, it's hard to overlook the team-wide hitting slump. The person i'm most disappointed with is Geovany Soto, because he has shown himself to be an all-star caliber player with excellent offensive skills for a catcher. However, he is currently sitting at the mendoza line with a single home run and single digit runs and RBIs. So what is wrong with Soto?

Some people want to blame the WBC. Firstly, Soto never had a full spring training, due to his obligation to the Puerto Rican national team, where he was benched most of the time for Ivan Rodriguez. Secondly, when he did arive to the Cubs, he had a severe shoulder injuriy that sidelined him for another 3 weeks. Whether the injury was due to the WBC is debateable, but surely is partly responsible to the slow start Soto has had behind the plate. Other people will blame his weight on teh struggles. Soto is a pretty heafty individual and this year appears to be even heavier. Finally, the only other explination is that Soto had a fluke year last year, and is actually an older prospect who is only average offensively.

However, looking at Soto's advanced statistics on fangraphs.com, I see no reason that Soto shouldn't rebound to his 2008 form and have another productive offensive season. Nearly all of Soto's stats are identicle to last year, except for the extremely low batting average and slugging percentage. One of the main reasons to explain this the great disparity between the BABIP from this year and last. Last year it was .338, much higher than major league average, but sustainable due to his 20% line drive percentage. This year the value has dropped to a meager .266 despite an equivalent 20% line drive percentage. Clearly Soto has been getting quite unlucky in terms of batting average, however it still does not explain the decreased slugging percentage which sits at .066, which is lower than David Eckstein for reference. The problem is the 3% HR/FB rate he has this year. Just like Edwin Jackson cannot sustain a 3% HR rate, neither can Soto, given that it is nearly 5 times lower this year than last. His spike in infield fly balls will eventually turn into deep fly balls, prefereably over the fence, and Soto will regain his status as a top 5 offensive catchers in baseball.

"And that is why I am better than everyone in the world. The motherfucking end"