Minnesota Twins to sign Jonathan Schoop
The former Baltimore Orioles All-Star is apparently headed to the Minnesota Twins on a one-year deal, a recent report indicates.
According to Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic, the Minnesota Twins are signing second baseman Jonathan Schoop to a one-year deal worth “more than $7” million. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com also reported similarly to Rosenthal. Schoop was previously non-tendered by the Milwaukee Brewers, the team he played with for the latter half of the 2018 season.
Schoop, 27, has seen his stock drop dramatically since his excellent 2017 season in which he slashed .293/.338/.503 with 32 home runs, 105 RBI and 35 doubles. After starting off the year relatively slowly in 2018 (.244/.273/.447 in 85 G, 17 HR, 40 RBI) with Baltimore, he was dealt to the Brewers at the trade deadline.
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With Milwaukee, he fell even more, limping to a .202/.246/.331 slash in 46 games with the Brewers, striking out 41 times in 124 at-bats. He did not collect a hit in eight postseason at-bats and struck out three times in four games.
For the Twins, Schoop seems like a tremendous bounce-back candidate for them in 2018. The Twins had, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, been quite active in the second base market prior to this reported signing. He notes that they were “talking with D.J. LeMahieu and Jed Lowrie” before.
Evidently, the Twins got somewhat antsy and decided to gobble up Schoop before the market really got going. As Passan adds, the “second base market could start moving now”. Schoop had not been connected to any other teams in preliminary rumours.
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With the aforementioned two second baseman likely looking for multi-year deals, the Twins likely did well by signing Schoop to a single year pact. While the salary is a bit concerning for a player who wasn’t much help to the Brewers down the stretch, it’s hard to entirely discount someone who carries a career .738 OPS in 681 games.