May 22, 2013

Determining the market value for Shin-Soo Choo

August 29, 2012 by 26 Comments

Last night while trying to avoid the actual topic of the Indians losing to the A’s 1 I decided it would be interesting to start discussing what kind of price Shin-Soo Choo could demand on the open market. We all like Choo (I think.) He is a player who should be part of any team’s solution as opposed to an issue. Still, he’s not to the level of a big-time premier free agent.

Choo batted 300 for three straight years with the Indians before faltering in 2011. 2012 has been something of a return to form for Choo as he’s batting 278 in a bad lineup on what has been a pretty bad team. He also turned 30 in July, so you have to assume his next contract could very well be his last, which brings us to point number one. How long a deal is Shin-Soo Choo likely to get? In my pragmatic mind, it seems to make sense for Choo to get a four-year deal with an option year of some kind, whether it be a player, team or mutual option. Jon seems to think with baseball being the way it is and Scott Boras being who he is, that Choo could be looking at a six year deal.

Ugh. Six years is a long time. Still, what kind of money are we talking about here? In my mind Shin-Soo Choo is a very good free agent, but certainly not a premier guy that would start a Prince Fielder bidding war. If I was putting a sincere value of what I think a guy like Choo should make on an annual basis I would put him in the $10-12 million annual range. Back to Jon, he suggested a scenario of six years and $13 million per year, similar to what Indians fans have recently endured with Travis Hafner.

Back in December of 2010, Jon wrote at length about Jayson Werth’s 7-year $126 million deal with the Washington Nationals and suggested that it was a precursor to Shin-Soo Choo’s contract negotiations. You’ll recall that deal runs past Werth’s 38th birthday paying him somewhere in the ballpark of $20 million. Ugh x 2.

More from Jon…

Well, believe it or not, Jayson Werth is about as good a comp for Shin-Soo Choo as exists.  Earlier this year I dug up a bunch of comparable players who were approaching arbitration, but none was quite as good a fit as Jayson Werth.  Both are corner outfielders with plus defensive skills.  Both are late-bloomers.  Both are good baserunners.  Both have quietly put together some very good, borderline great offensive seasons.  Both are represented by Scott Boras.

My premise originally was that Choo was about a $10 million per year player and that the Indians would be well-advised to pony up $10 million per year for Choo. That wasn’t to say that the Indians would do that, just that solid baseball players cost that much. I hadn’t figured on locking a guy up for six years and a minimum of $13 million per year.

So we’ll see if the market that produced Jayson Werth’s deal is still there when Choo goes hunting. It seems to me that it shouldn’t be, but nothing in baseball would shock me. When the league signs a deal that could pay each team $21+ million per year in national TV revenue, you just don’t know what the market will do.

That brings me to one final thought. Why wouldn’t the Indians take a gamble on Choo? Assuming he doesn’t end up an injured mess, the Indians should be able to trade him at some point if he turns out to be a guy they can’t use or can’t afford. We are talking about a league that saw Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford get unloaded with some of the richest contracts in league history after the trade deadline. And Choo shouldn’t be as expensive as any of those three players.

More than likely, all this talk is for nothing though. I would bet Jon Heyman is right and the Indians will move Choo this winter.

(AP Photo/Gail Burton)

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  1. By the way, why is it acceptable to have an apostrophe in their name? It is a little complex, but it is supposedly right. [back]

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  • The_Real_Shamrock

    All of the numbers make sense to me as does Jon’s thinking of the Indians resigning Choo and trading him later except for the problem that the Indians haven’t demonstrated the ability to be very forward thinking. I think the most likely scenario will see Choo traded sooner rather then later and for a lesser package then the Indians could have probably recieved had they not acted so quickly. That seems to be their MO regardless of who the GM is at the time.

  • boomhauertjs

    I’m sure the package of utility players and injured pitchers that the Tribe receives for Choo will really excite the fan base. Baseball’s economic system is broken and needs to be fixed, but the Indians’ front office mistakes aren’t helping.

  • cmm13

    He will be traded due to the fact that he has repeatedly ignored our attempts to re-sign.

  • Harv 21

    This subject would have real relevance to Cleveland sports fans only if the Indians had any ability and intention to pay the Boras-assisted market value of a good baseball player in his prime. But they don’t, and they won’t. Maybe it has indirect relevance to how much value we’ll get in the upcoming trade, but other than that … We knew Choo was leaving, assisted or unassisted, the day he signed with that agent. And good for him, no hard feelings.

  • Garry_Owen

    Since I don’t want to talk about the Indians at all, or losing Choo in particular, I’d like for someone to answer something for me:
    We can all agree, can’t we, that in order to signify that a noun is plural the acceptance method is to simply add an “s” to the noun (or “es,” if the noun already ends in “s”)? Under no circumstances does “apostrophe s” signify a plural noun. Yet, we as a society – including the subject organization itself – are perfectly willing to express the name of the Oakland baseball team as “the A’s.” Why do we do this?
    I get that “As” simply looks like the word “as,” but come on, who are we that we are willing to sacrifice what is right for what simply looks more comfortable???? If they were the “Bathletics,” or the “Cathletics,” we would, I hope, call them the “Bs” or the “Cs” (unless some crafty gentleman would suggest calling them the “Bees” or the “Seas”).
    Boycott the misuse of the “apostrophe s”!!!
    Who’s with me??

  • Steve

    4 years at 10-13 million? What? That will get you laughed out of the room. Cuddyer got 3/31 last year, you mention Werth from 2010, and in 2009, Jason Bay got 4/66. Choo may not have gaudy HR and RBI totals, but now that every team employs at some people for the purpose of sabermetric analysis he will be highly popular. Solid defense, good speed and power, and a great OBP. We’re looking at another Abreu, a guy who made a ton of money in his 30s. Choo has put up 4 WAR per season (at an average of 120 games) for 5 years now. Teams have been paying 4-5 million per WAR recently.

    It’s going to take 6/90 just to get Boras to answer the phone, and some team (I’ll guess Boston now that they’ve unloaded a lot of salary) will easily top that.

  • MrCleaveland

    Garry, as usual, makes an excellent point.

    Submitted for your approval:

    We can fight punctuational illiteracy, or we can give into it. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I say we give in.

    Face it, As is confusing, as is Os. And what if — there’s that phrase again — what if we someday we have teams called the Is and the Us? Chaos would reign.

    Therefore, I propose we introduce a new use for an old friend.

    But first, let me tell you a little story. Back about 20 years ago, the @ sign was forgotten and near death. It was useless, unloved, and in danger of being evicted from keyboards worldwide.

    Then the Internet came along and — BAM! — everything changed. The dirty and derelict @ sign was suddenly the most popular punctuation mark around. It was invited back into society by trendy, hip, cutting-edge types. Soon thereafter, it was seen in high-end restaurants, gala premieres, and Harv’s legendary back-yard luau’s.

    The Internet brought the @ back from the dead and turned its life around.

    So let’s save another ignored character. Let’s repurpose the long-neglected accent grave mark (`). It’s basically a backward apostrophe, and it’s got nothing better to do. By recycling it, we would satisfy anal-possessives such as Craig, Garry, and myself, and we would make life easier for those who need some kind of mark following vowels the precede plurals. So we would have the Oakland A`s and the Baltimore O`s and everyone’s happy.

    All I am saying is, give accent grave a chance.

    And if someone wants to float wind of this suggestion toward the Nobel people, well that would be nice.

  • mgbode

    yeah, Werth was 2 years older and had these OPS+ leading to his FA: 120/122/129/144 (he has since done a 97/125)

    Choo: 151/126/147/107/131

    Now, let’s mention that the SF Giants are going to have to keep up with the Dodgers, that the Red Sox need a corner OF with Crawford gone (Ellsbury FA in ’13) and have a ton of $$$ now. The Yankees may let Swisher walk if they can get Choo in his place (not likely, but possible), and we haven’t even discussed the Phillies.

    All the funny-money new local-TV deals means that Choo is likely to dwarf Werth’s deal. Not Pujol’s/Fielder money, but I’d be somewhere in between those 2 levels.

    We are moving Choo this offseason.

  • mgbode

    agreed. no hard feelings to Choo. he has been forthcoming about his intentions by signing with Boras and not putting us through the charade that he is seriously negotiating with the Tribe.

  • mgbode

    ??? we waited till CC’s last year. we traded Lee away a year early. we have done it both ways. my guess is that we sign Choo to his last year of arbitration and ship him off to a team that is disappointed by this year’s FA class (good for us that it is a poor class overall)

  • mgbode

    great, just great. now Mr. C has a tic. see what the Indians are doing to us?

  • Garry_Owen

    So, give in without really giving in? The Austria/Norway/Denmark approach? I like this.

    Accent grave! Accent grave! Accent grave!
    [I hate to do this (no I don't, who am I kidding?), but it should be "Craig, Garry, and me." In the midst of one of the most finely crafted internet comments in the history of binary code, you have, inadvertently, I'm sure, committed a grave affront to my pettiest of peaves.]

  • MrCleaveland

    Ach, you’re right. As I said to the mirror while breaking up with myself, “It’s not I, it’s me.”

    Did you catch the apostrophe I stuck in luau’s? Looks very weird without it.

  • Garry_Owen

    I missed that. I must have given in.
    Please replace said apostrophe with an accent grave.

  • maxfnmloans

    don’t forget the bag of balls. And pine tar! Lots and lots of pine tar

  • Steve

    That too. This will definitely be a good season to hit the FA market. The big market teams should have some serious money to spend. I’d be willing to bet that Choo gets $20 mill/year by the end of his deal.

  • BuckeyeDawg

    I think we should cut the whole roster, and replace it with guys nobody’s ever heard of, and who are way past their primes (for those who actually had one). Then, throw in a storyline about a greedy owner who wants to lower attendance so he can get out of the stadium lease and move the team. Heck, we could even make a movie about it.

    At least it would be entertaining.

  • Harv 21

    Crap, I hate when I have to work and miss all this. They’re their, Harv, your late, yule catch the next nerd roundtable.
    [ughhhhHHH ..... FISHES!!! ... MARKETING SUITS ... CREEPING TEXTING ABBREVIATIONS ... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzztttt]]

  • Garry_Owen

    Uh oh. I think Harv’s head just exploded.

  • Return of the (Alex) Mack

    You never know who will be the next Lou Marsons or Jason Donalds

  • MyTribe

    The Indians should ask Boras for some kind of one year extension that gives the Indians more of a chance to get a better return for Choo in a trade. I’m not sure what Boras would want.
    Would a one year extension for 12 million be enough? In return, the Indians agree to trade Choo to one of 12 teams of Boras’s choosing if they are not contending next year.

  • mgbode

    Boras is not re-upping. He is not letting his client get another year older and he is not accepting a below market $12mil deal (for 1 or more years).

    Choo is signing at minimum a 6yr $115mil deal and I would not be surprised to see it end up being a 7yr $180mil deal.

    ——————–

    watch Nick Swisher this offseason and then add a full year of salary and about $5mil more per year. That’s Choo.

  • MyTribe

    So Choo is going to sign for money than Adrian Gonzalez. Your post loses credibility when you make a claim like that.

  • mgbode

    or Choo is going to make slightly more than Jayson Werth being that he is younger and has put up better numbers more consistently.

    Adrian Gonzalez signed a bargain contract for the player he is in today’s MLB. The Dodgers thought so much that they took on Crawfords deal in addition to his despite Crawford undergoing major surgery now.

  • MyTribe

    Assuming Boston is still selling out every game, they still felt Gonzalez was too much money. If Boston is a seller, than the market might be topping out.

    Or, it is also possible that a bunch of middling teams will take the plunge this year because of the extra wildcard team that was added this year. I see many playoff bubble teams trying to middle feed but if there are not enough players, suddenly free agent ballplayers could see bigger contracts.

    And yet, the economy is not going to get better anytime soon. less than 13,000 in Baltimore for a game against two playoff contending teams, wow.

  • mgbode

    Boston sacrificed Adrian Gonzalez to rid themselves of Beckett & Crawford’s deals. Do you really think they thought A-Gone was too much $$$ by himself?

    and I see what you are getting at with the 2nd wild card. I think that’ll affect the trade deadline more than the FA market, but you could be correct that more teams will try to play the mediocre line now.

    what I see as driving the contracts though are the groundbreaking local TV deals. The Angels make $150mil/year off of their deal. The Dodgers may make as much as $250mil/year from their deal. Noone knows how much the Yankees make because they own YES!