Day Fifteen: Shin-Soo Choo
I had to go back and look at the game log for the 2006 season so that my fanciful visions of a terrible team giving away Shin-Soo Choo for zero reason was tempered by reality. He was dealt in mid-July for Ben Broussard and some cash when the Mariners were still very much alive in the standings. And as has been stated before on this wild ride, the mid-00's Mariners (pre-2008) were still a team "getting back" to the playoffs. And when we heard that we believed it and had little reason to think that it would be 2020 and the Mariners wouldn't have made the playoffs. And Ben Broussard had a not terrible season with Cleveland in 2005. But putting all that aside, and looking at the trade as a player for player swap over the next ten years (ten-plus actually)--it looks like this: Post trade WAR for Ben Broussard's career (which was only two more years!) is -1.7. Yes that is a negative number. And the post trade WAR for Shin-Soo Choo is 34.2. Yes that is 34.2. So just looking at possible wins that Choo has over Broussard that comes out to 35.9 wins more for Choo. Think about the possibilities with some of those almost there teams of 2009 and lets say even 2016 and 18. Damn! That's a real bummer. And Choo is still an active, starting, everyday player today (whenever they start playing that is). That's a huge loss. For a first baseman with questionable skills. You don't really get a much worse trade than that. But there is more.
Over the course of Shin-Soo's career the Mariners have repeatedly found themselves without guys who can get on base. They sink their resources into players with little to no plate discipline. Even during their supposed "good" years with Cano and Cruz you've got a heart of the lineup that could easily see three pitches in an inning (Cano, Cruz, Seager). So yeah, there was potential there, but in the baseball game of the 21st century you were never going to see sustainable regular season success from a team with those three sandbagging hackers as the core of your lineup. And every time they tried to trot out a Dee Gordon, or some other miserable soul as a leadoff guy, I would think about Choo. Diligently taking his pitches, finding the one that he wanted, or just drawing the walk. You see, Shin-Soo Choo is one of the best leadoff hitters of the past twenty years and nobody outside of baseball nerds knows it. He has a career OBP of .377 (man, that is a number to make any Mariners' fan salivate) and at the peak of his prowess, which just so happened to coincide with literally (and literally is the literal word here) the worst lineup that modern baseball has ever produced in the Mariners' lineup of the turn of the decade, he had seasons of amazing on base abilities. From 2008-2013 Choo had FOUR seasons with an OBP over .390. Two of those seasons are over .400 and the rest are above .370. And he stole bases. Amongst other things Choo was a fantasy powerhouse (and tbh he still is) those years and he def won me some money on several occasions. So yeah, if Erik Bedard was the face of Mariners' failure, then Shin-Soo Choo (and Asdrubal Cabrera, but that is a tale for another day) have been the faces of what could have been. However, as I write this, I am feeling less dismal and hopeless than when I decided to make Shin-Soo the player of the day last night. The sun is shining and the birds are out there and my Tino Martinez rookie card is coming to me through the mail. Let's just take this final sentence to appreciate how amazing Choo has been over the course of his career: He is the best Korean player ever. Bravo, Shin-Soo Choo! Here's to hoping you've got another couple in the tank!
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