(Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr)

Doesn’t it sort of feel like we’ve been here before? This is pretty much exactly like last year, when the Chapman-starting-pitcher experiment happened, and then didn’t happen. Except now, there’s no ‘good’ reason, like Ryan Madson coming down with a bad case of broken elbow. That’s the only thing that drives this from ‘mild pout’ to ‘full-fledged exasperation’. There is nothing true about Chapman, Leake, or any other pitcher on the Reds today, that was not true back in the off-season when we were treated to a whole lot of “Chapman is totally definitely probably maybe going to be in the rotation this year.”

Of course, it’s not a clear-cut decision. A GM changing his mind, even without any clear change in information (other than your player and your manager both openly opposing the move) is not exactly pitchfork and torch worthy. It just seems like there’s been so much hand-wringing and pearl-clutching all winter long. So many tedious debates. If they had just said “he’ll be the closer” back in December. Well, one, we could’ve skipped signing Jonathan Broxton, and used that money a little better, and B, I could’ve whined about it for about two weeks, and then  largely forgotten about it.

I’ve firmly been in Chapman should start. Partly, because I think it’s better for the team going forward, and partly because the idea of a hard-throwing 6’4″ lefty starter with great strikeout records is pretty exciting. Now, I’m looking for things to make myself feel better about the whole thing in retrospect.

Basically – that’s this season. We have a pretty exciting team for 2013, and I don’t know that Chapman to the rotation helps that much this year. Mike Leake certainly doesn’t add anything to the Reds 2013 bullpen, and I’m not very confident that we can pull off the 2012 – 5 starters/161 starts crazy witchiness we did last year, so I don’t think we should trade him away. Plus, Chapman’s 70 innings in 2012 really limits how much we should think about letting him throw in 2013. I think it’s insane to believe he would be worth significantly more than the 4.3 WAR that Strasburg put up last year. When you compare that to the 1.5 WAR Mike Leake put up last year, and then consider that Mike Leake’s bat was worth 1.0 WAR – that’s normal replacement. Chapman’s probably worth a small negative amount, if anything, with the bat. So with Chapman in the rotation, you’re going to lose as much as 3.3 WAR out of the pen, and gain maybe out most 2.5 in the rotation? (Yes, this is very irresponsible math, but hey, I’m just trying to make myself feel better.)

Am I hoping that we’ll see a Kris Medlen style move, especially in the case of a major injury in the rotation? Yes. Definitely. And maybe I’m just kidding myself, but I’m not about to let this move interfere with enjoying the hell out of the 2013 Reds season.

(Photo by Keith Allison)

No, not the Cincinnati Reds rotation, as we already know about Choo’s 4 career home runs against Bronson Arroyo, and the two he hit against Mike Leake last year should probably speak for themselves. Thankfully, a full-time move to Great American should offset any hitting stats he loses from not facing Bronson Arroyo for one or two games every year.

After hearing about Choo’s bat heating up in Arizona of late – his 10 hits lead the team right now – I was thinking more about how Choo will look in our lineup. I mean, hey, if Jay Bruce likes him, who can complain, but, still, while I’ve been exceptionally excited about the Shin-Soo Choo era, his numbers might not stand out to your average viewer – he’s not putting up Mike Trout superstar batting stats.

So, I wanted to take a look and see where Choo measured up with the Reds 2012 lineup – so I compared him to the ten Reds who got 300 PA or more last season

• Mostly due to playing time, Choo would have led the team in hits, been second in singles (to BP) and doubles (to Votto), and would’ve placed 5th in HR. It’s possible that Choo will swat a few more in GABP in 2013, but we were 3rd in the NL in homers last year, so we probably didn’t need to improve our home-run power very much.
• With 73 BB, he would be second to Votto in both walks and walk rate. (Incidentally, we were 9th in the NL in walks)
• For slash line lovers – he would’ve been 2nd in average, 2nd in OBP, and 5th in slugging
• While Choo would have been 2nd on the 2012 Reds (and that’s still including Stubbs), he doesn’t fair nearly as well in more comprehensive numbers. Speed Score would only put him as 4th on the Reds, and fangraphs’ ‘Universal Base Running’ number has him a “-1.2″, which puts him above only Rolen, Votto and Bruce
• His 2012 Line Drive % would’ve ranked 3rd on the Reds behind Votto, and just behind Ludwick, while his IFFB% (also known as – the thing Joey Votto is REALLY GOOD at not doing) – was just 2.6%, easily second behind Joey.
• Choo doesn’t have a very contact rate, putting him in the bottom half of reds regulars/semi-regulars in 2012. On the other hand, that’s also where Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier and Ryan Ludwick all were, so that’s not so bad. We can’t all be Ryan Hanigan, after all.

Well, obviously Choo’s patience is the asset that we should be looking forward to. He’s not totally without power, but he won’t stand out on the 2013 Reds – but, again, we didn’t really need to add a lot of power.  When you compare his OBP to what he’s replacing, in Drew Stubbs …. Choo has his fair share of strikeouts, but it’s going to have a way different feel.

Let’s be honest, I’m just super excited, and wanted to talk about Shin-Soo Choo again.

Recently, my fiance, Mr. Tiger, who briefly guest blogged last week, started up his own blog for baseball analysis, called “(Alex) Gordian Knot.” If you don’t know who Alex Gordon is, or the story of Alexander of Macedonia and the Gordian Knot, this will seem like a ridiculous name to you. If you do, it might still seem pretty stupid. I may also be posting some general-baseball non-Reds related stuff there in the future, but for now, it’s mostly his show.

What he’s been looking at is sort of measuring playing time distribution by plate appearances, creating cumulative density charts for all batters, over a certain time period. What this does is give you the probability that any plate appearance is taken by a player with X or fewer plate appearances in a season. Considering the state of the Reds bench last year, and Dusty’s penchant for giving starts to terrible aforementioned bench, I thought it would be interesting to look at comparing the Reds to the rest of the league. I thought this was a particularly good way to look at it, because “bench or not bench” is unhelpfully Boolean, and this is a little more nuanced. So here is the CDF for player plate appearances in 2012 for the Reds and the NL.

Not intuitively useful! Obviously, the Reds have fewer data points, to the curve is not smooth. It’s probably helpful to think of this by individual data points. For example, the Reds had about 10% of their total plate appearances go to players with 100 PA or fewer, and so did the league. Go up to 300 PA, though, and the Reds had about 20% of our plate appearances go to players with 300 PA or fewer, while the league had more like 30%.  Although there is a sample size issue, I think there is a somewhat meaningful distinction for the Reds in the 250 to 450 PA range.  The league had over 50% of its PA go to players with 430 PA or less. The Reds had about 37%.

I’m still not sure how meaningful this is.  One player in this range of PA would create a swing of about 7%, so it’s not just one player. I do think the circumstances of Todd Frazier is a bit part of it. Usually either Rolen and/or Votto’s sub would fall into this category, but instead we have one player with 465 PA, and who was pretty good, to boot. Still, the major players with less than 450 plate appearances on the Reds in 2012 were Heisey, Hanigan, Rolen, Valdez,  Mesoraco, Cairo, and Paul. On other teams, their equivalents (regardless of the number of players it was), got a lot more time in the batter’s box.

I would say it’s probably a good thing, but it may just be happenstance,  luck, or noise.  In any case, I probably need to think on it a little bit more.

I had a hard trouble assigning the Bats. Are they mammals? Or long pieces of White Ash? (Photo by BubbaFan/Wikimedia Commons)

Right now, the Cincinnati Reds are in spring training, and not much interesting is happening. We’re giving Mark Prior a chance, and we’ve already sent Bill Bray to minor league camp.  I can’t quite stir up the emotion to yell about 2013 bull-pen roster planning, and I’m at that time of my life when assigning a narrative to meaningless spring training stats just makes me want to take a nap. There hasn’t been a lot of broadcast of spring training games, so it’s hard to get any idea of how things are progressing.

This was partially inspired by the news that Joe Mauer’s wife is giving birth to Twins. Hilarious! (BECAUSE HE PLAYS FOR THE MINNESOTA TWINS, GET IT?!) That made me think of all of the teams you could be on, and what’s the weirdest one you could give birth to.  I mean, the Reds, is a weird one. our current mascots would be a huge no-go (at least not without a Caesarean), going back to the Redlegs or Redstockings origin wouldn’t be weird, of course, but not too bad. And the abstract version sounds sort of like a bad period.

But while I wouldn’t want to give birth to a Rockie (even a small one), or a Marlin, surely, I thought, there are weirder things  in the strange minor leagues to give birth to. I’ve also categorized and listed every minor league team – in this spreadsheet, so feel free to take a gander and dispute my categories.

1. Astronomical:  Stars/Suns are like waaaay bigger than mountains, and 5600 K. Ouch.
2. Phenomena: I guess giving birth to a ‘Miracle’ is pretty pedestrian, but I’d think Thunder, Blaze, or a Quake would be seriously alarming
3. Geological: Just like the Rockies, but I was surprised by the number of entries here: Rainiers, Lookouts, and Volcanoes
4. Fantasy: Giants are kind of odd, but could just be a very large person. Dragons and Lake Monsters take this to another level entirely
5. Places: Some of the most inexplicable team names in the minors anyway. You know what’s a great mascot? Missions! A secretive U.S. military base associated with aliens! Eugene’s nickname of the Emerald City!
6. Transportation: There are so many transportation related team names. Roller-coasters, Studebakers, train curves, highway routes, ports, old-school boats, airplanes…
7. Animals: Animal diversity is so much greater throughout the minor leagues. Not just birds, a couple fish, and fuzzy mammals – you’ve got Chukars, insects, sharks, and dinosaurs.
8.  Food: We’ve all had a food baby now and then, but giving birth to Nuts, Biscuits, or Kernels is getting way too litera
9. Individual People: This is for teams like “Doubledays” or “Intimidators” which is a reference to Dale Earnhardt, or “Keys” which is Francis Scott Key. Would you be going back in time? Or would it be a reincarnation of Abner Doubleday? Would it be like, a fully grown Abner Doubleday? Or Doubleday as a baby?
10. Punctuation: Mostly because I was astounded to find out Winston-Salem Dash are named after punctuation.

Note: I am “out” this week, preparing some stuff on the World Baseball Classic, that will appear on Aerys’s Around the Horn blog.  To fill in, I’ve asked… my fiance to write up a blog post for you.  Incidentally, he is known on the internet, anonymously and mysteriously, as ‘Mr. Tiger’. Because he is a Tigers fan. But he can introduce himself.

This guy would obviously have skewed the numbers a bit, back in the day.

Hi, I’m Mr. Tiger. You might remember me from such posts as “Let’s do this Neyer-style”, and “So, you’ve decided to Photoshop Mr. Redlegs’ head onto a daguerreotype baby”. So, how old are the Reds? They’re the oldest professional team, as long as you link the Red Stockings to the current incarnation. Which we obviously do around here. The Ol’ Left-hander, Joe Nuxhall, still holds the record for the youngest player to ever appear in a MLB game, coming in to get two outs (allowing 5 runs) in the middle of an 18-0 blowout.

So how old were the 2012 Reds? There are a few ways to define the age of a team, but I’m going to deal with three here:

1. The normal way – Sum of player ages divided by number of players.
2. Weighted by usage (e.g. G, PA, IP)
3. Weighted by value (e.g. WAR, wOBA)

Method 1 is straightforward but not very useful (okay, more not very useful), since Pedro Villarreal (1 IP) counts the same toward the average as Brandon Phillips (623 PA). The weighted values are also reasonably easy to compute. For example, the sum of the product Age*WAR divided by the sum of the WAR gives a WAR-weighted average.

For usage weighting, I’ve used PA, and made the assumption PA=IP*4 for pitchers. This is just to be able to lump hitters and pitchers into the same group for usage. For value weighting, I’ve used (FanGraphs) WAR. No assumptions are needed in order to combine hitters and pitchers for value.

The 2012 Reds were 28.0 years old by usage, and 27.4 years old by value. This is against league averages of 28.4 and 28.2 years respectively. Two things are interesting about these data. The usage and value weights are close, with younger players being a little more valuable than older players per plate appearance. The split is a bit larger for the Reds, but it’s by no means the largest split I came across. Looking at playoff teams, the Giants had the largest split of about a year and a half (28.3 vs. 26.8). Teams did make the playoffs being well “off-peak” in terms of age, as well: the oldest playoff team was the Yankees (31.6, 31.8), and the youngest was the Nationals, at (26.9, 25.8). Out of curiosity, I did look up the Astros, who came in at (25.9, 26.2), which was the youngest team by usage that I found.

The league split between value and usage, where young players are slightly more valuable than their use would suggest can probably be attributed to several things:

1. Managers trust veterans.
2. Slumping veterans will be given a longer look to ride out the slump.
3. Veterans that have gotten worse (not just slumping) will still be played because we’re paying them, dammit.

A slightly more detailed version of this analysis would probably be involve figuring out any patterns to the deployment of these older players in terms of regular/non-regular status. It should also be pointed out that none of this is probably quite as useful as a different measure of “age”, years left on contract weighted by value. Thank you for plowing through my tedium.

Tara: YAAAAY! Thanks, Mr. Tiger.

The Cincinnati Reds, as you may know, have been around a long time. Video cameras have been around less long. I mean, unless you count that phot0-animation running horse thing. And, that, only if you use the way un-cool starting point of the original franchise of 1882, like baseball-reference. MLB.com now has quite a few classic videos for your perusal. And,  for your convenience, I’ve collected three of my favorites, to occupy you tonight.

This one is not exactly Reds positive, but it’s older, and it’s really amazing. From Game 1 of the 1970 World Series (box score), Lee May is leading off in the 6th inning, with the game tied at 3-3. He stings one down the third base line, and Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson, picks it up, and throws it, off balance, to get May out at 1st. (May already had a single and a two-run HR in the game). The Reds would go on to lose that game 4-3, and the series 4 games to 1, but hey, you also get to see Jim Palmer, infamous hottie, in the video as well.

Video Link 

This game is not a World Series game, but it’s a great one from the 1989 season. Paul O’Neill manages to not totally screw up, but I’m not sure how. On July 5. 1989 (boxscore), the Reds were tied in Philadelphia in the bottom of the 10th inning, and Lenny Dykstra was up, facing John Franco with a man on second. Dykstra hits a soft liner into right field, and … then things happen. In the end, O’Neill does manage to hold the runner on third, but he would score on a passed ball in the very next at bat, anyway.

Video Link

Every baseball video list needs a good brawl. This one  is from Game Three of the 1973 National League Championship versus the New York Mets in Shea. (Boxscore). Joe Morgan hits into a double play, and Pete Rose gets into a fight at second base. And then there’s another fight. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have footage of Pedro Borbon taking a bite out of a Mets cap, but there is a lengthy, if somewhat biased account of the whole situation here.

Video Link

Bonus video: It’s just Ken Griffey Jr. returning to Seattle in 2007 when the Reds played the Mariners in interleague play, but while he’s coming out for a little ceremony on the field, they’re playing the theme to Jurassic part, which….what? Video link.

Now, that it’s been a few days since its breathtaking debut, I’m going to remind all of you to go buy the 2013 SlydePress Redleg Annual. http://www.redlegannual.com. You probably already know what that is, and if you don’t, you’re only reading this blog because you’re my mom or a crazy person with a stalkerish obsession with former College Jeopardy! contestants. Probably the latter, I don’t think my mom actually checks the blog very often.

Anyway, the Annual is edited by Joel Luckhaupt (Red Reporter emeritus, current FSO stats guy, author of Reds books) and Chad Dotson (Redleg Nation). It’s over 24 articles and 78 pages of writing from all over Reds fan – from Mo Egger in the established media, to you know, me. I wrote a chapter matching up the 2013 Reds with historical players. Who did I choose? You will have to read to find out, but as a teaser: I picked three Baseball HOFers. That may seem a little silly, but I explain that too. It’s also got great cover art from the very awesome Elizabeth Metz, who is also drawing every Reds Hall of Famer, here.

 It’s only $4, which is a dang good deal. The writing and content are both excellent – even being unbiased about it, it should be a must-have for Reds plans gearing up for the 2013 season. You can get it in Kindle and Nook formats, or just as a pdf, and print it out yourself. (But that’s a tad less eco-friendly).

You should go buy it! I said so!

I’ll miss you, Scott and Miguel. But not too, too much. (Photos by Keith Allison/Flickr)

It’s a strange thing – though generally the Reds had very low turnover this offseason, the opening day roster will still feel very “new look”, thanks to the lack of Scott Rolen and Miguel Cairo. Neither player will be suiting up for the Reds in the 2013 season. Miguel Cairo has taken a position with the Reds, as a Special Assistant to the GM. While Scott Rolen has not said what he’ll be doing, he won’t be attending camp with the Reds, and it’s hard to see him joining the team midseason without significant injury to the current roster. Rolen’s ambivalence this off-season suggests that he’s not ready to leave baseball just yet. It’s not impossible for him to end up with some team in 2013, but I think it’s more likely that he’ll end up taking some time off, and maybe gradually inching into management positions – but he’s said he wants to spend more time with his family.

Cairo and Rolen haven’t defined the recent Reds teams, but they’ve been a mainstay since 2010 – as part of Walt Jocketty’s Veteran Presence Former-Cardinals Initiative. (It’s like the Avengers Initiative, but with less pecs and more shoulder injuries.) Rolen was brought in to provide a more stable presence (offensively and defensively) at third base in a trade that sent Edwin Encarnacion, Zack Stewart (who?) and Josh Roenicke (who?) to the Blue Jays, while Cairo came in as a free agent in the following offseason.

2010 was definitely the best year for CaiRolen – Rolen was great everywhere, at the plate, in the field, in the the clubhouse, and Cairo was pretty excellent for a bench player. 2011 went a little haywire: Cairo still provided league average offense, but had an increased responsibility, thanks to Rolen’s injury problems. That was only one of the multiple failures with the 2011 team, but it surely showed us one of the potential drawbacks of older players. 2012 was a bit of a return to form for Rolen, but the 37-year-old was still subpar, especially with a young fun like Frazier knocking down the door. Meanwhile, Cairo sank into the pit that was the 2012 Reds bench.

Here is Rolen’s final line with the Reds:

And Cairo’s:

By the numbers, at least, Rolen and Cairo won’t be hard to replace. Rolen was worth about 1.1 WAR last year, while Frazier was worth 2.8 (in more playing time, overall). More time will exacerbate Frazier’s slightly below average fielding, but then again, settling into one position might improve Todd’s defensive skills. Still, the projections see Frazier as about a 3 win player in 2013, and I agree.

Cairo was rated as worth -1 wins last year. Infield bench replacements look likely to be Jack Hannahan, and Jason Donald. Hannahan was worth about 0.5 wins (~300 PA, 750 innings) with the Indians last year, and Donald was worth -0.4 wins (~130 PA, 300 innings). Neither are spectacular options, but bench guys rarely are. In any case, they can almost certainly match the work of Valdex and Cairo last year.

Of course, the line on both Cairo and Rolen has been their role as veteran clubhouse leaders. While I, like most interneters, have no direct knowledge of this, the stories do suggest that this was of some importance. I certainly appreciated their ability to not be involved in scandals, and even to not say anything that caused too much of a stir. A team of 25 of those guys might be a little boring, but a couple of solid presences is always appreciated.

In 2013, though, the team has changed in substance. Joey Votto is not promising youngster – he’s an MVP who’s been to the post-season twice, and overcome multiple struggles. Brandon Phillips is now a part of the fabric of this team, you have guys like Bruce and Hanigan who have been around for awhile. There are still older, experienced players around – like Arroyo in the rotation, and Ludwick in the outfield. Mostly, though, when I look at this team, I see a team that has grown together. They know each other’s quirks and idiosyncracies. They’ve won and lost together.

Photo by crymzn/Flickr

I think a lot about the differences between pitchers on the same team. Afterall, they mostly play their games in the same ballpark, in front mostly the same defense, and occasionally with the same catcher. Still, there seems to be plenty of variation at work when it comes to our (and probably everyone’s) starting pitchers. A lot of it is probably luck. But, maybe sometimes it isn’t. I’m always especially interested in the idea of the relationship between the defense, and a starting pitcher’s batted ball tendencies. Do groundball pitchers benefit more from better infield defenses – almost certainly, but how much? And do left-handed pitchers benefit more from a better right side defense?

I’m not going to answer those questions for you. Because I can’t right now. But I was very interested to look at this, which is a chart of how often the #1 position player played for each member of the rotation.

Well, first, the percentages are percentages of the pitcher’s starts – so a difference of one start is going to be around 3%. So even a 10% difference still isn’t that much. But there are some variations that, while maybe not significant, are maybe worth considering. The Prime example would be that Cueto saw less of Phillips, significant less Ludwick, and less Bruce when he started – who are all better offensively than their replacements.  This isn’t a complete picture, of course, given the ups and downs of a season, the fact that Cueto had Hanigan behind the plate in almost every start (who was offensively superior to Mesoraco), and that Ludwick was often replaced by Todd Frazier and Xavier Paul – who aren’t slouches.

Still, I still think it’s reasonable to suspect that Dusty Baker is doing this on purpose. After all, we know Dusty likes to get his bench out there, which is, probably, a pretty good idea. You might as well do it while Cueto is out there, and we have a pretty good chance of winning a low scoring game, and it isn’t like it’s that many games. Theoretically, at least, this is good for the team, even if it’s not so great for Johnny. That is, if it ends up making a difference.

So here’s what it boiled down to, in terms of “average ops” of the lineups in each pitcher’s starts:

• Arroyo: .755
• Bailey: .750
• Cueto: .744
• Latos: .761
• Leake: .755

That’s not a huge difference. Johnny Cueto’s got the Arizona Diamondbacks offense, and Mat Latos has the Milwaukee Brewers. And here’s how the run support numbers shake out

• Arroyo: 3.56
• Bailey:4.15
• Cueto: 3.79
• Latos: 4.45
• Leake: 4.63

Ok, so we know that run support is pretty noisy. Obviously, there’s not a great correlation with the average OPS number above.  There is definitely a difference between the run support Cueto gets, and the support that Mike Leake gets. But it’s not out of the ordinary. For instance, over in Detroit, Justin Verlander got 3.82 runs in run support; Max Scherzer got 5.41. I wouldn’t put it past Jim Leyland to have an especially hopeless Justin-Verlander-lineup either though. Also keep in mind that some of Mike Leake’s run support is supported by Mike Leake. Leake’s excellent hitting could make up a lot of that difference.

Overall, it’s hard to say. I’m willing to say (if not exactly confidently) that I think Dusty favors Cueto for the scrub lineup treatment, and that’s probably having some effect on his Ws. Still though, Johnny Cueto won 19 games this year. You just can’t keep old Johnny down. (Hooray, baseball is back!)

Pretty sure Choo is the hatless kid in the back. No idea on which one is Lee.

For your daily dose of Choo news – earlier this week, it was announced that Look Asia, a movie production company has signed contracts with Shin-Soo Choo and Dae-Ho Lee, currently with they Orix Buffaloes, to make a movie about the Korean team that won the 2000 18U Baseball World Championship in Edmonton, Canada. The movie, currently called “Edmonton Kids”  will also focus on the later development of Choo and Lee, who is a former KBO triple crown winner. Both players grew up as talented baseball players in Busan at the same time, making them friends and rivals.

At the time, Choo was a top pitcher, and won both the MVP and Best Pitcher awards for the tournament. I don’t think there are complete records available anywhere on the web, but apparently the gold medal game between South Korea and the U.S. was something special. Though the US went up early 4-0, the Koreans won it 9-7 in a brutal 13 inning, 4- hour struggle. (Link to the Edmonton International Baseball Foundation website). Players on the 2000 US Junior squad include JJ Hardy, Brandon League, and Joe Mauer (who OPsed  1.566 over the course of the tournament). I don’t have any stats for the Korean side, but Shin-Soo Choo apparently struck out 33 batters over the team’s 8 games. (Has anyone ever asked Mauer or Choo if they faced each other as teenagers – you know, since they played against each other in the AL Central for so many years?)

The article also says they signed with both players’ teams, but I don’t know if they also includes the Reds, and if they movie will include any of Choo’s time with the Reds. Still, it seems like a pretty good watch, if there ends up being an English subtitle.

In other news, you know what I did find? I found Shin-Soo Choo’s high school stats! I know, How useless is that? Super useless. But still.

First, I want to introduce this segment with a screen cap of the amazingness of google translate. One, tee-hee! Two, you can see that Choo wore 17 in high school, too.

Here are Choo’s stats as a pitcher.  FYI, I think these are just the major tournaments, and are not totally complete. (You can read a little more on Korean HS baseball on wiki.)

Note the 87 Ks, 36 BB, and 15 HBP in 74 innings in his final year. Busan-go won the President’s Cup Championship that year, and Choo got the win in four of the team’s five game, which, incidentally, occurred over the course of about 9 days.

And here’s the hitting stats:

Choo’s patience and power are  clearly not a recent development. However, if these stats are at least complete for these tournaments, his base-stealing is. Maybe that’s just not how the high school game is played in Korea. It also makes me wonder about Korean player development. Lately, the US tends to concentrate on the pitchers from NPB and KBO. This meshes philosophically with the  NPB’s love for foreign power hitters, like our old friend Wladimir Balentien. But, the KBO’s foreign players are almost all pitchers, like our old friend Ben Jukich.

I’m not totally sure how true it is that Mariners scouts signed Choo primarily as a pitcher, but how crazy is that? Choo’s HS hitting numbers look pretty great to me, and now he’s the most successful Korean hitter in MLB history. But he was scouted and signed as a pitcher.