The Shin-Soo Choo Choo Train Chugs Into Cinci
So, as you know, there was a pretty interesting three-team trade made on Tuesday. Though I’m sure Dusty Baker contested, the Reds finally have a new leadoff hitter, one whose OBP doesn’t suck. Shin-Soo Choo is now a Red and will likely hit atop the order for his new team. With strong OBPs and only so-so ISO marks the last two seasons, Choo makes for a pretty perfect number one guy. Given the perception of the two parks, getting out of Cleveland and into the supposed launching pad in Cincinnati should boost his fantasy value. Let’s see if that is the case.
Below are the relevant park factors for left-handed hitters:
| K | 1B | HR | Runs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progressive Field | 99 | 100 | 100 | 103 |
| Great American Ballpark | 102 | 98 | 112 | 106 |
Hmm, not exactly what I expected. Although on the whole Progressive Field is a pitcher’s park, it primarily suppresses offense from right-handed hitters. Choo is a lefty, and for lefties, it actually plays pretty neutral. Choo has typically struck out at a higher rate than the league average, and solely based on the park switch, his contact rate might be hampered even more. It’s a very small difference of course, but noteworthy nonetheless.
Choo has lived off a high BABIP, which is necessary when you don’t hit a ton of home runs and also have a high strikeout rate. His career BABIP is a whopping .353, which is exactly what he posted this season as well. What’s most impressive is that Progressive Field doesn’t even inflate singles. The GABP suppresses them slightly, so all else equal, he would see a negative effect from the move.
As expected, home runs is where Choo should see the most significant effect. Once again, Progressive Field was neutral for left-handed long balls. On the other hand, the GABP is one of the best parks to hit home runs in. Choo strikes out a lot and has seen his fly ball rate decline for three straight seasons. So, although he should definitely see a boost in HR/FB ratio, it still might only add an extra home run or two simply because he doesn’t hit enough fly balls to begin with. In fact, if Choo had posted a 15% HR/FB rate this season instead of a 13.2% mark, he would have hit 18 homers, or just two more than he actually did.
Last is the overall run scoring environment in the two parks, which takes into account other types of extra-base hits, any effect on walks, etc. Though Progressive was neutral in the other metrics, it actually inflates run scoring for lefties and isn’t far off from the GABP. The Reds scored two more runs than the Indians this year and that of course was with a pitcher instead of a DH. I think we can agree that the rest of the Reds offense is better than what the Indians will trot out. So the move should be favorable to his runs plus RBI total. The Reds are also not shy about running, so simply from a team switch perspective, Choo should not be affected from a stolen base standpoint.
Overall, the move is clearly positive for Choo, but I think the change in value is rather insignificant. At most, he gains a dollar or two of projected fantasy value in mixed leagues, which is about a 5%-10% boost.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Good stuff as usual….Interesting LH numbers for Progressive field…not what I expected either.
Choo pulling the ball is a very small part of his game, 65% of his hits are to RF/CF, and he drives the ball with authority when doing so. His ISO when hitting the other way is .268, pulling is only .240. his slugging to all fields (pull, center, opposite) is .577, .628, .671.
Perhaps we should be looking at him from the perspective of a RHH.
this. Home run factor should have included park factors for both righties and lefties since he shows so much genuine oppo power.
This as well.
Plus they scored two runs more with a pitcher AND with Stubbs and his .277 OBP (plus Cozart and his .288 OBP sometimes) hitting at the top of the order, two OBP drains. Placing Choo there and assuming a full year from Votto and Frazier and you are severely, even criminally, underrating the affect on his R and RBI.
Good job looking at the factors – huge oversights though.
I just checked out the GUTS page to see the park factors for GAB and CLE for RH hitters. Unfortunately you can only see them one year at a time and not for a group of years, so this isn’t perfect, but looking at GAB for righties we see:
1B as R: 98 2B as R: 99 3B as R: 102 HR as R: 113
For Progressive:
1B as R: 102 2B as R 100 3B as R: 90 HR as R: 93
So it looks like Choo should benefit fairly well from the move to Cincinnati when he hits the other way. When he pulls the ball he should still benefit, but only marginally, and like Matt said, the lineup around him will be much better. I think we may see a .290/.385/.460 110-20-65-22 line as long as he doesn’t get rattled by the change of scenery.
his first home run of the year was to Left center. yes, i traced myself back to this post because I actually remembered this comment, which drove me to pick up choo way too early in my fantasy draft.
There’s one more factor when considering the move from the Indians to the Reds and that’s personnel. While he is not the best hitter, that’s what he was considered to be in Cleveland. In 09 and 10 he was for the most part under the radar as pitchers didn’t see him as a ligitimate threat. Now he’s had some injuries and off the field issues the past few years which can account for the drop in some of his numbers, but the other thing that has affected him is the way pitchers have treated him. They didn’t pitch t him the same as the other players on the team because nobody else on the team was a real threat, so he saw less good pitches like in his first two season. Why take a chance at giving him a fast ball up the middle when he’s followed in the lineup by joe schmo.
Now he’s hitting infront of players like Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto so he could/should see a better pitch selection than he has for the past few years. There are those players that are good hitters on their own and there are those hitters that are better because of their surrounding cast. I think Choo falls in to the latter half and could come close to the numbers he put up in 09 and 10. These aren’t superstar numbers, but he should contribute nicely in every catagory and in fantasy…….that’s all people care about.
That’s my 2 cents…, keep the change.
Choo posted a 134 wrc+ in 2009 and a 145 wrc+ in 2010. Two year average was a 139 wrc+
If he’s putting up those numbers which are comparable to the campaign this past year of noted non superstars Adrian Beltre and Josh Hamilton the Reds will be very happy.
So, as you know, there was a pretty interesting three-team trade made on Tuesday. Though I’m sure Dusty Baker contested, the Reds finally have a new leadoff hitter, one whose OBP doesn’t suck. Shin-Soo Choo is now a Red and will likely hit atop the order for his new team.
Explaining on base % is a chore in southern Indiana.
in an EXTREMELY small sample size, 24 AB, Choo over the past 3 years at Great American: 6 R/4 HR/6 RBI. 1 HR per 6 AB.
Oh yeah, in 713 AB at Progressive, 23 HR, 1 per 31 AB.
Wouldn’t dare to extrapolate for 81 games at Cincy. Still, hard to argue that he LIKES it there.
At Progressive last year, lefties hit:
1 HR per every 45.1 AB.
1 HR per every 35.4 AB
at Great American.
Those AB rates are weighted for the league. i.e:
‘At Progressive’ weights for 81 games @ Progressive and 20 games each @ KC/MIN/DET/CHA.