Baltimore Orioles: Ranking Jonathan Schoop among 2Bs

Mar 18, 2016; Tampa, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop (6) bats against the New York Yankees during the game at George M. Steinbrenner Field. The Orioles defeat the Yankees 11-2. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /

How does Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop rank among MLB players of that position?

It is probably a true statement that O’s fans believe Schoop to be certainly among the better second basemen in baseball, perhaps even on the cusp of becoming an elite player along the same pathway taken by Manny Machado.

That statement would essentially encapsulate my view of Schoop. I am anticipating a big breakout season, believing that he is approaching the time where accumulated experience meets with rare skills at the peak age of life. He just needs to stay healthy and not have something like a blown-out knee happen on a take-out slide.

I will go so far as to predict that, given a full and healthy year, Schoop will be at worst third on this team in total home runs. I’ll call him to actually finish second, with even a chance at hitting the most. I know how outlandish that sounds for this squad, but his power potential is very high. Remember, this is the guy who hit the second-longest homer in baseball last year.

In any event, is there a way to rank Schoop relative to other MLB second basemen? If so, our friends at FanGraphs will find a way to attempt it, which they did in an article just yesterday. And as always, this is the ultimate in sabermetric evaluation, not always appreciated by everyone, including me. But it does provide interest. And I love FanGraphs and stats.

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Orioles fans are not going to be happy with FanGraphs’ analysis and projection about Schoop and the total strength of the position for the Orioles. They rank Jonathan and the O’s at #22. Yep. I could hear you scream all of the way through the internet.

Essentially, they acknowledge his rare power for the position, but are underwhelmed completely by the free-swinging, the strikeouts, and the OBP sorts of numbers. In fact, at the top of the article, Schoop gets particularly mentioned in this back-handed compliment sort of way, saying that the position “is an eclectic mix of young contact hitters, aging contact hitters, contact hitters with some power, and Jonathan Schoop.”

And in the Orioles section (which at #22 is three-quarters of the way down the page) the write-up is not going to help you keep from spitting out your cornflakes at breakfast. While we in Oriole-land expect to see Schoop put it all together, FanGraphs is actually calling for him to regress …

"Schoop is something you don’t see every day: a second baseman who strikes out ten times for every walk he draws. Most of the rest of this list is filled with contact hitters with questionable power, but Schoop flips that dynamic on its head, offering just enough power to compensate for a comical lack of strike zone judgment. Schoop made it work in 2015, providing a 112 wRC+ as a 23 year old, but his proclivity for infield flies means that he’s probably not going to be able to keep his BABIP anywhere near the .330 mark, and regression should be expected this year."

Look, we will admit that he is a big-time free-swinger. But it is because we have seen better plate discipline that O’s fans hope for progression, not regression. Beyond that, with the lineup the Birds have this year, Schoop is going to get good pitches to hit. The swing is sweet, that is for sure. But the article goes further, decrying the horrible nature of any help from backup players …

"The power is real, but without some semblance of improvement in his approach at the plate, Schoop is likely to be more of a curiosity than a real asset. Unfortunately for the Orioles, they don’t have much in the way of alternatives, as Ryan Flaherty can’t hit, and Jimmy Paredes is so bad defensively that the team used Steve Pearce at second base instead last year. It’s Schoop or bust at second base in Baltimore this year, so they’re left to hope that their young 2B figures out that you don’t have to swing every single time the ball is delivered."

I guess they aren’t terribly impressed with Flaherty’s spring training numbers!

But really, I can’t see how Schoop, even short of a great breakout season, is not at least in the top half of MLB second basemen, particularly with defensive capacity thrown into the mix. But balancing out some of what is written above is the following caveat from the introductory article to this series of rankings.

"And in many cases, it’s not really worth getting worked up over a team’s ordinal ranking, because in many cases, the difference between a mid-tier and bottom-tier ranking is going to be fractions of a win. … Try to keep in mind that this series is more about providing information than it is about arguing over which team should be a few places higher or lower on a list."

That almost sounds like an admission that the WAR statistic is not all it’s cracked up to be. In any event, sounding a lot like Buck here, as an Orioles fan, I am not coveting any other second baseman around baseball; I like our guy. What do y’all think?

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