Shin-Soo Choo: Arbitration

Shin-Soo Choo had a 1.3 WAR in 11, but still has a 4.67 Average in the past 3 years, which worth 14 million million. However, he only made just under 4 million in 2011. His career fielding percentage is below league average, as is his range factor (despite this he still has a career 2.5 D-WAR). He has a great career OBP at .384, an OPS of .856, a 1.36 PPG, and 2.42 PAPP. 2011 was bizarre, he struggled with different injuries and had legal problems and put up a .344 OBP, .733 OPS, 1.09 PPG, and 2.71 PAPP. These aren't bad numbers but they certainly aren't the numbers you are used to seeing with Choo. One would think that a .317 BABIP would be actually mean due for regression, but with Choo this doesn't seem to be the case. In his career, Choo has a .353 BABIP in a large sample size. A cynic might say that he has just been really lucky and is still due for regression. As far as that goes, he is an average groundball hitter, and an above average line drive hitter. Also, a greater percentage of his flyballs turn into homers than average, and he doesn't pop up in the infield near as much as the average hitter does. He walks 11.6% of the time, and is an above average extra base hitter. These things combined may explain the extremely high BABIP. The statistics definitely point toward injuries being the big problem for Choo in 2011, as they seemed to have robbed him of his power. He has a career Slugging of .473, but in 2011 he had just a .390, below league average. A similar drop in ISO (.182-.131) also occurred. All this shows that we can probably throw 2011 out, unless he hasn't recovered from those injuries. So the Indians can probably expect the 6.9 Runs Created per Game, and .652 Offensive winning percentage outfielder. He has a nice 98.15 PPS, and is an extremely valuable player. Barring health problems, expect Choo to be a monster again and for the Indians to get great value out of him as well.