Texas Rangers: Shin-Soo Choo is relevant once again
After being an albatross for most of his Texas Rangers tenure, Shin-Soo Choo is having a resurgence in 2018 and is one of the team’s best players.
The Texas Rangers inked outfielder Shin-Soo Choo to a seven-year, $130 million contract the winter before the 2014 season. At the time of the signing, Choo brought incredible plate discipline and some sneaky power to the table.
His defense was a question mark, but it appeared his offensive skill set would compensate for any defensive deficiencies. Coming into 2018, the Choo signing had been an abysmal failure.
In his first four seasons in a Texas Rangers uniform, he had posted just one season with an above 1.0 fWAR (2015). More telling, in the year before he signed the mega-deal with Texas he accumulated a 6.4 fWAR year with the Cincinnati Reds.
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He was more valuable in one season with the Reds than he was in his first four with the Rangers, accruing 5.3 fWAR in that span.
His defense had cratered, and his power had dissipated. Choo had become a league-average hitter, and no longer got on-base enough to justify the money he received.
Even though Choo may never match the value he was given on the open market all those years ago, Choo has bounced back in a big way this season.
He has the third-most plate appearances (335) in all of baseball and has accumulated a very solid .277 AVG/.388 OBP/.468 SLG slash line. This is accompanied by a 1.9 fWAR, which is more than he produced in his last two seasons combined, and a 134 wRC+.
His current on-base percentage is the highest it has been in any season with Texas. Additionally, the 14.6 BB% he is featuring is the second-best of his entire career. He maintained a high walk rate throughout his Rangers career but this season has been something better. The 35-year-old has also seen a considerable spike in power in 2018.
His .191 ISO (isolated power) shows that he is hitting for more power than in any season since 2008. Choo’s hitting for more than in any point in the last decade. This is perhaps the paramount reason he is doing as well as he is.
Right now, he is on-pace to hit more home runs than in any year in his entire career. Currently, his career-high is 22 long balls, and he already has belted 13 in less than half a season.
Choo’s Hard% (hard contact percentage) is at 45.4% this year. This is an enormous increase from the 36.1 Hard% he collected the year before, indicating this resurgence has been the byproduct of a real change in the quality of contact.
He is hitting a few more fly balls and fewer ground balls this year, but it is not a massive change. As such, this surge in power is not fueled by an increase in launch angle.
The pitches he is swinging at are not better ones to hit, either. His O-Swing% (pitches swung at outside the zone) and Z-Swing% (pitches swung at in the zone) are pretty much the same from ’17 to ’18. As mentioned, he is walking more frequently, adding evident value through that outcome. With that said, it has no bearing on his boom in power.
The cause of this spike seems to have come through his enhanced ability to hit fastballs. Vintage Shin-Soo Choo would destroy any and all heaters that would come his way. He consistently featured one of the best fastball runs above average (wFB) score in baseball, according to Fangraphs. In fact, between 2013 and 2016 Choo graded as the fifth-best batter with the fastball among 297 qualified hitters. He is sandwiched between two pretty good hitters in Paul Goldschmidt and Nelson Cruz in that category.
Like most offensive stats, Choo’s experienced a decline in his wFB score when he joined the Rangers. This year, however, he has been much more adept at handling fastballs.
With a 14.4 score, he places 10th in baseball among qualified hitters in 2018. He’s faced 518 four-seam fastballs to the tune of a .294 average and .549 slugging percentage.
Meanwhile, he’s seen 260 sinkers (two-seam fastballs) and has demolished them with a .380 average and .720 slugging percentage. That information is courtesy of Brooks Baseball, in case you were wondering.
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After being an albatross for the Texas Rangers the majority of his contract, he has turned it around in a big way at the ripe age of 35. He is hitting the ball harder and is taking more free passes this season.
Put it together, and Choo is experiencing success most thought would only exist as a memory in the past for him. While not a lot has gone right for Texas this year, Shin-Soo Choo is a welcomed surprise and a conspicuous bright spot.