Rays first baseman Ji-Man Choi has been a quietly productive member of the team’s offense over the past couple seasons. The Korea-born Choi – previously with the Mariners and Orioles – got off to a slow major league start with the Angels in 2016, evidenced by an unimpressive .170/.271/.339 line in 129 plate appearances in his first taste of MLB experience. That caused the Angels to outright Choi for the second time, and he wound up declining that assignment to join the Yankees prior to the 2017 season.
Choi only totaled 18 plate appearances with the Yankees, who then became the latest team to kick him off their 40-man roster in July 2017. While Choi joined the Brewers on a minor league contract in the ensuing offseason, they didn’t give him much of a chance in the majors. After he took 30 at-bats with the big club, the Brewers traded Choi to the Rays in June 2018 for infielder Brad Miller.
The Choi-Miller deal didn’t come off as an exciting one when it occurred, but it’s clear who came out on the better end in hindsight. Miller, now a Cardinal, amassed a mere 74 at-bats as a Brewer in his lone year with the team and was unable to produce much of anything in his brief time with the club. On the other hand, the Rays have stumbled on a pretty good offensive piece in the 28-year-old Choi, who has batted .263/.365/.472 (127 wRC+) with 27 home runs and 3.0 fWAR in 676 plate appearances since he first donned a Tampa Bay uniform.
Last year, his first full season in the bigs, Choi hit .261/.363/.459 (121 wRC+) with 19 homers in 487 PA to help the Rays to 96 wins and a playoff berth. If we’re to believe Statcast, it was not a fluky showing, considering Choi ranked well above average in categories such as expected weighted on-base average, exit velocity and hard-hit percentage. Meanwhile, FanGraphs estimates that Choi’s performance in 2019 gave the Rays $15.5MM in value, far outweighing the league-minimum salary he made.
The Rays could continue to profit from Choi’s presence in future seasons, as he’s controllable for four more years and one more pre-arbitration season, but that’s not to say he’s without obvious flaws. The clearest problem is that the left-handed Choi has had issues versus southpaw pitchers. The sample size isn’t large (125 PA), but lefties have held Choi to a woeful .185/.288/.296 (64 wRC+) since he got to the majors. That’s clearly not going to get the job done, though the well-constructed Rays are flexible enough that they should be able to shield Choi from facing lefties going forward. The offseason acquisition of righty first baseman Jose Martinez – a renowned destroyer of lefties – ought to help matters.
In typical Rays fashion, Choi and Martinez should provide the small-budget club great production at a minimal cost. Martinez will make less than $2.5MM this season, giving the Rays a potentially terrific offensive tandem at first base for around $3.3MM. You have to get especially creative in building a roster when you don’t have much money to spend, and the Rays’ front office has done just that time and again. The Choi acquisition, although it looked unimportant at the time, is one of many reasons the Rays could enter 2020 (if there is a season) as one of the teams to beat.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of article, but the title of the article feels so cringe gimmicky.
Now you get a sense of how awful of a commentator John Sterling is. Ji-Man is a He-Man!
Was hoping for Ain’t Nothin but a Ji Thang
I could have lived with that.
I cannot believe the Rays gave up one of the best left handed pitching prospects for Martinez, a guy who’s never posted a WAR above 2, a negative WAR last season and is already 30.
bUt He mAsHEs LEfTiEs
Imagine trying to clown a career 160 wrc+ vs lhp and act like it’s a joke. LMAO honk honk
Well if we’re learned anything about the Rays in the last few years is that we dont really need them to explain themselves because the rarely lose big in a trade
They got Arozarena a future CF and they have plenty of pitching
Martinez is a JD Martinez clone.
Stick him at DH and let him hit.
A guy who’s best suited for DH you can’t judge by WAR….we know his lack of defense hurts his WAR.
But a guy you can stick at DH and get anywhere from 20%-50% better than league average offense for 3 years that’s valuable to a team like the rays who are on a budget.
They also picked up a replacement for Kaimaier in the event of injury and/or when his contract is up at end of 2022. I don’t see rays keeping him around and paying him 11mill and 12mill next couple seasons.
I feel the Rays know something about Martinez’s bat, or that Liberatore isn’t going to be all that great. The Rays always are a step ahead of other teams in knowing what players are involved in a trade.
But you at least have to admit that a Choi-Martinez platoon looks good on paper for a small-market team (minus what they gave up), and, knowing the Rays, the pair will probably end up somehow posting a better combined wRC+ than Goldschmidt or Alonso.
Choi vs RHP+Martinez vs LHP (2019 stats)= .283/.372/.511, 22 home runs, 471 plate appearances. That’s almost identical production to Bryce Harper or Justin Turner going off the triple slash.
They also swapped competitive round draft picks a B for a A. But they wanted Martinez due to his contract & ability to hit LHP. Having Mcclanahan & Baz + a few other young arms in the minors also allowed them to make this trade.
Did Choi play in KBO before?
Nope , Signed with Seattle at age 19
Ji-Man and the masters of the baseball.
A whole article about Ji-Man? Sign me up! BTW I didn’t realize how good he has been with the Rays, I thought he was more of a .750 ops .250 average type guy… proved me wrong.
Choi would probably not have bounced around and stuck with the Mariners were it not for him constantly being injured. Glad he overcame it and found success.
Cringy title.
Choi actually tried to address his platoon splits by attempting to switch hit in his one spring training with the Yankees, He gave it up in regular season but maybe he should have stuck with it.
LoL They Ray’s hoping Choi is there lineup savior. Good luck with that.
the Brewers were foolish to trade him
Brewer fan here, agreed. Idk if it had something to do with a lack of options remaining, but Arcia was really struggling and this was a low-budget attempt to gain some offense in the middle infield. The timing of this was awful though, Ji-Man had a grand slam against the Phillies the day before they traded him…
Everyone forgets Choi is a roid user.
The best part about Ji-Man Choi is his dancing.