As the trade deadline continues to draw closer and closer, Baltimore should be listening on everyone.
seems destined to wind up wearing a different uniform in the coming days while
, in a contract year, is likely getting shopped heavily.
Starting pitcher Kevin Gausman should definitely be traded at some point. He has two and a half years of control left and has been a serviceable arm for many years. The sooner, the better, probably.
This brings us to Jonathan Schoop, perhaps their most promising trade asset. The second basemen will become a free agent in 2020, so he has one and half years on his contract remaining. His extra year means he has more value than the half-year rentals the O’s have been shipping off.
The problem is that their star position player is in the midst of a down year. In 2017, Schoop belted 32 homers with a stellar .293 AVG/.338 OBP/.503 SLG slash line in 675 plate appearances. He posted an accompanying 121 wRC+ and 3.8 fWAR that season.
This year, however, he has fallen considerably, featuring a poor .244 AVG/.274 OBP/.442 SLG clip and a 0.7 fWAR. After previous seasons of better numbers, it is logical to assume this year’s lack of production is a blip. Consequently, perhaps it would behoove the Orioles to wait and see if he can establish his value with a hot second half?
Well, while Schoop does have an unsustainable .264 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) dragging his slash line down, it is not clear that he is just a case of poor luck.
Over at Baseball Savant, the 26-year-old’s quality of contact has taken a significant step back. His xwOBA (expected wOBA) is .281, which is in the bottom four percent of the league, while his actual wOBA is .306. By how he has hit the baseball in 2018 (factoring in strikeouts and walks), he should be doing even worse.
Last season, his Hard Hit% (percentage of hard hit baseballs) was 37.2 percent but this season it has fallen to 31.9 percent. He is barreling less baseballs and has a lower average exit velocity, too. Oddly, his batted ball outcomes (fly ball, ground ball, line drive, etc.) have remained pretty much the same.
It is not immediately clear what has caused his diminished offensive abilities. He has been hitting baseballs, on average, at essentially the same angle as before. It is a pretty startling drop off.
There could be an argument that maybe the oblique injury he suffered early in the year is still nagging him. If that were case, most of this could be explained. Still, 2017 was probably the best version of Jonathan Schoop we will ever see. He had a .330 BABIP with (again) an xwOBA that was lower than his actual wOBA.
All of this must be taken into consideration when thinking about dealing Schoop. If he is a good candidate to bounce back, then it would be wise to hold onto him and wait until they can sell high. Still, with every passing day, he gets closer to free agency. Returns for a year and half are typically better than a year or a half year of a player.
The Baltimore Orioles are not going to be competitive in 2019. If the Orioles decide to keep him for the rest of the season, they would be delaying the inevitable, like they did with Machado.