He's a leadoff hitter with a .417 OBP (second in the NL) and plenty of pop too -- 14 homers and 26 doubles/triples. His OPS of .883 is 40% better than average and 10th best in the league. He gets on base even more often -- half the time -- in high leverage situations, like late in close games.
He's worth four wins to his team at the plate, fifth in the league, and staffs the critical center field position. Not surprisingly, he's third in the league in runs scored, thanks also to a great number three hitter and good cleanup guy.
He's no flash-in-the-pan either: during his nine year career, he's hit .289/.387/.465, 33% above average.
And yet, he wasn't even seriously considered for the All-Star team and isn't on anyone's MVP preview list. You probably don't know anything about him. Shin-soo Choo may be the most under-rated player in Major League Baseball.
It may be that the low-key Korean native has suffered an identity crisis from playing in Cleveland and Cincinnati, two Ohio cities with small Korean populations. It could be that his skills don't light up the BA-HR-RBI stat meter that uneducated baseball fans still use. It could be that teammates like superstar Joey Votto and flashy Brandon Phillips have overshadowed him.
Whatever the reason, Choo would have to be on your short list of MVP candidates so far, along with Votto, David Wright, Buster Posey, Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutcheon, Matt Carpenter, Yadier Molina and Carlos Gomez.
It's worth noting that nowhere near that list is Phillips, the walking highlight reel powered by joie de vivre and accompanied by a decent stick. But the suggestion by an MLB-employed "analyst" (who shall remain nameless to spare him further embarrassment) that Phillips is the NL MVP so far because of his league-leading RBI total is so utterly out-of-touch that he should be relieved of duties based on that one statement alone. (Ironically, the offending analyst was a reliever when he played ball.)
Phillips led the league in RBIs -- he doesn't anymore -- because Choo and Votto occupy the basepaths before him. Phillips himself is hitting just .261/.313/.403, which, though highly respectable for a second baseman, is below average overall. Not only does he enjoy the most RBI opportunities in the league by a wide margin, he also benefits disproportionately from runners in scoring position. Phillips is a laudable sixth in the league in converting those opportunities, but that's hardly MVP material. He's been worth about a win-and-a-half to the Reds, small potatoes compared to Choo.
It's tempting determine player value by this method:
1. Find an everyday performer on a good team with a high batting average and big home run totals
2. Season with steals and fielding
3. Factor in his position.
That would make us feel like we'd covered the bases. You're likely to find a good player that way, but our tools are so much more refined and thoughtful, and easily available. They help us determine that a quiet guy like Shin-soo Choo is far more valuable than his tweeting, fun-king teammate, Brandon Phillips.
Last installment of the Look Back trilogy on posts during the 2012 baseball season that either left the yard or whiffed.
This June 26 post suggesting the Mets should eject their most powerful booster rocket engendered some indignant emails. Ha! Take that indignant emailers! Not only was it right, the Mets took the advice and traded R.A. Dickey while his value was high.
Where the post went wrong was in suggesting that Dickey couldn't possibly keep up his first half heroics. Technically speaking, that was true: everything about R.A. Dickey is an impossibility, and yet the 38-year-old fireballing Scroogie artist manages to astonish us anew every fifth day. Only now he'll do it for Toronto while the Mets develop C Travis d’Arnaud, and RHP Noah Syndergaard.
This report of the Phillies' death as contender was not exaggerated. Nor was it premature. The core of the team in 2012 was crippled, two of the triumvirate of pitchers expected to provide ballast came up short and the franchise is left betwixt and between -- neither a contender nor a rebuilder.
This fact was underscored by the assertion in the aforementioned post that the Phils had to make a run at a pennant in 2013 given the boatload of investments in their expensive and aging core. That was followed five months later with this post, which flambe'd GM Ruben Amaro for signing another aging veteran when he should be punting the season.
Ding this blog for being inconsistent and the Phillies for being in no-man's land. Their only hope is that Howard, Utley, Rollins, Polanco, Young and Halladay have one last burst in them, like a Phoenix, or a bag of microwave popcorn.
Finally, on a romp through the Majors at around the three-quarter pole of the season came three notable assertions that rang the distant echoes of Meat Loaf. Two out of three ain't bad.
First the losing proposition: that Mike Trout and Andrew McCutcheon seemed MVP locks, not withstanding complete collapses. Well, McCutcheon and his locks collapsed nearly completely in the second half while his Pirates skittered into the record books on the futility side. Trout continued to amaze, as did the baseball writers who picked the wrong guy -- by a country mile -- for the award.
On the other hand, the same post suggested the Dodgers should find a new home for Hanley Ramirez after a .330/.392/.549 performance and good behavior in 23 games following his trade from Miami. Put this way:
Now if the Dodgers are smart, they'll flip Hanley's re-motivated self to
another club while his value remains spiked and let his next sulk come
at someone else's expense.
Ah, but they held on in the vain hope that he could help them slip into the playoffs. Instead, a .268/.305/.375 September drained most of his trade value and for the second time in five years an uninterested "Ramirez" will plague the Dodger roster at high cost.
Carl Crawford, however, did listen, just from the other end of the country. Attempting to play through the lost Red Sox season with a torn left (throwing) elbow tendon, Crawford finally heeded the same post, which urged him to bag the season and accede to Tommy John surgery the next day. Nearly the next day . . . Crawford was packaged up with Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers, whereupon he went straight into the operating room. With eight months to heal, Crawford is expected to be ready for Opening Day.
We all will be. See you there with a new batch of provocations, some of which will even be right.
