Gwinnett Stripers Fishing Report: Mike Soroka is Learning to Deal and Dominate

This story is featured in the May 7-28, 2018 edition of the Gwinnett Stripers Fishing Report. Editor's note: Soroka made his MLB debut on May 1, after the story was sent for publication.
Mike Soroka sits in a blue padded chair facing his locker near the back of the Gwinnett Stripers' clubhouse with his head down as heavy metal music blares through his white earbuds.
Hours earlier, Soroka walked in wearing a white button-down shirt, blue jeans, brown boots with moose socks underneath - the same outfit he wears every day he's the scheduled starting pitcher. On this day, he's quieter than usual, his face stoic, clearing his mind in advance of his first home start with the Stripers against the Rochester Red Wings, in which he'd go on to allow two runs while striking out eight over 5.2 innings.

"Everybody thinks that you've got to get into a zone," Soroka said. "A lot of the time, it's just approach. If I want to be confident and I want to be single-minded to just compete and dominate, a lot of other things take care of themselves. It takes care of the nerves because there's nothing to be nervous about when you carry confidence and competitiveness."
Confidence wasn't always the case for Soroka, a 20-year-old right-hander from Alberta, Canada. He said before he was drafted 28th overall in the 2015 draft out of Carroll High School, he was anxious heading into each start because "what people think matters for your future." That carried over into pro ball, when he made his debut with the GCL Braves at age 17, he said.
But last year, in his age 19 season at Double-A Mississippi, Soroka worked on fighting those nerves with then-pitching coach Derrick Lewis, and with fellow Canadians and former big leaguers Paul Quantrill and Chris Reitsma among others.
"You've got to understand, especially when you're 19 years old in Double-A, you're allowed to make mistakes," Soroka said. "Once you realize there are good enough hitters that are going to hit your good pitches, then there's no sense in worrying about not making good ones."
That mental adjustment paid off. Soroka went 11-8 with a career-low 2.75 ERA in 26 starts with Mississippi last year en route to winning Atlanta's Phil Niekro Award for Minor League Pitcher of the Year.
Yet baseball took a back seat to hockey for most of Soroka's childhood, he said. A goaltender growing up in his hockey-loving country, Soroka said he didn't really watch baseball until around 2012, when he conveniently had an eight-inch growth spurt leading into 10th grade. It was then he fell in love with the game and shifted his focus toward becoming a professional pitcher, though he found some scouts doubting his ability to become a highly touted prospect.
"I got to listening to people on the outside thinking that I was just a sinker guy," Soroka said of his draft outlook. "Just because I throw strikes and was fairly efficient, people started to assume that I didn't have the stuff to be a dominant pitcher."
But two years on Canada's U-18 Junior National Team and a prestigious high school career proved he was worthy of higher praise. Soroka and teammate Kolby Allard, who Atlanta selected 14 picks ahead in that same 2015 draft out of San Clemente High School in California, are already two of the youngest pitchers in Gwinnett history. As they've risen through the Braves' system at essentially the same pace, they look at precedents set by the game's current stars as motivation to one day, Soroka hopes, reach that elite status.

"Allard, myself and a bunch of guys in our organization, we get labeled right out of the draft; 17 years old and we're labeled," Soroka said. "You look at some of the best pitchers in our game, they were late bloomers. You look at (Stephen) Strasburg, he was a high-80s guy out of high school. Corey Kluber, Jacob deGrom both went to Stetson, a mid-major (Division-I college), they took off from there. There's no reason why any of us that are young can't keep getting better and I think we all understand that."
Soroka said if there's anyone he tries to emulate on the mound, it's Kluber, the Cleveland Indians' two-time Cy Young Award winner. Another is Washington's Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young winner, whom Soroka has admired since he began watching games on television.
"You watch Scherzer compete, and he's the best," Soroka said. "He carries himself so highly on the mound that he's putting the thought in hitters' heads before they come to the plate that they're finished. It's the same thing Pedro Martinez did. You talk to some of our hitting coaches that played with him or against him, they say guys would mail in days. Once you've got that mentality, you've got a serious advantage. You're already supposed to win at least 70 percent of the battles. Once you hone that in, you're at 80 or 90 percent. You've got no reason to hold anything back."
The 6-foot-5 Soroka has found that the best way to assert that dominance on the mound is to attack the strike zone. He has a low-to-mid-90s sinking two-seam fastball that he'll throw to either side of the plate, a slurve-like breaking ball that sweeps downward as sharply as it does across, and a changeup.
"He's got plus-pitches," Stripers catcher Rob Brantly said. "He's got that two-seamer that really helps the other pitches. I think that he works in the zone and it's what makes him really effective. He's got action on the pitches that brings it out of the zone. He gets a lot of swings, early contacts and a lot of outs."
That's evidenced by his 2-0 record and 1.99 ERA through four Triple-A starts, including his first career 7.0-inning complete-game shutout in Rochester on April 23. Known for his pinpoint control throughout his career, he's walked just five batters versus 24 strikeouts in 22.2 innings.

Brantly said Soroka takes the mature approach of establishing the strike zone and using the action on those plus-pitches to get the batter to swing when the ball breaks off the plate.
"There's going to be days when (coaches) say 'we need to work on righty-righty changeups,'" Soroka said of throwing against right-handed batters. "If you're in a situation where they call righty-righty changeup and you give up a home run, that's helping you learn for the future. Did you try to go out there and get hit? No. But what's best is to improve your game."
Despite his age, he has already accumulated more than 350.0 innings in Minor League Baseball. He believes he's ready to take on Major League hitters, but is remaining patient and arriving every day prepared to work, much like teammate Ronald Acuña Jr. did before his own call-up to Atlanta on April 25.
"I think a lot of our guys are very fortunate the Braves are a very forward organization," he said. "I know a lot of buddies in other organizations that should've been pushed and should be pushed now, and just aren't because of the stigma around age and putting in your time. At the end of the day, it's about getting (wins) for your big-league club, and if you can do that there's no reason why you shouldn't be there."
For now, Soroka will continue to develop his "single-minded" approach with Gwinnett: to compete and dominate.
"The common mentality is that for six, seven outings out of the year, you're going to have it all; half of them, you'll feel decent, then you'll have some starts where you've got nothing," Soroka explained. "We don't see a reason why you can't have your stuff all outings of the year. We're taking the approach to every game like every one is going to be our best day. We're not just going out there to play our game, we're going out there to dominate. I think that's how you learn - you make mistakes, but you learn."