With the Baltimore Orioles fairly quiet in free agency and spring training still about a month away, I wanted to go over a 2010s O’s fan favorite, Johnathan Schoop, and detail what I believe to be one of the most interesting career arcs in baseball.
Schoop first started to make headlines as one of the top players on the 2004 Curacao Little League World Series Championship team, which also featured current big leaguer Jurickson Profar. Four years later, Baltimore would make Schoop a part of their international signing class, where he would debut in the Dominican Summer League at just 17 years old.
After a little over four years in the minors, Schoop found enough success to become the Orioles’ top position player prospect, making his major league debut on September 25, 2013, against the Blue Jays. Schoop would end up tallying two hits in the game, including his first career home run in a 9-5 win.
It’s safe to say that even in a five-game sample size, Schoop’s expectations going into 2014 were sky high. Unfortunately, it was not smooth sailing for the rookie. While the defense translated immediately, Schoop struggled at the plate, posting just a 64 wRC+ with a batting average barely above the Mendoza line at .209 in 137 games.
The 2015 campaign was another interesting year for the second basemen. While injuries again limited him to just 86 games, Schoop slashed .279/.306/.482 with 15 home runs and a 113 wRC+.
Schoop was finally able to stay healthy in 2016, playing in all 162 games. His wRC+ did fall 14 points to a league average 99. However, 25 home runs and elite defense at second base was more than enough to net him the best fWAR mark of his career at 3.5.
The best season of his career would come the following year. Once again, Schoop stayed healthy, netting 160 games, a career-best 32 home runs with a wRC+ at 120, an OPS of .841 and an fWAR at 4.5, all comfortably the best marks of his career.
With the offense finally coming into its own and the defense still firmly elite, Schoop was finally looking like one of the best second basemen in baseball.
Unfortunately, he was never able to truly sustain the player he was throughout 2016/2017, as injuries would again pop up in 2018. With the Orioles at rock bottom, Schoop was shipped off to the Milwaukee Brewers in an effort to recoup whatever assets they could.
After an abysmal second half with Milwaukee, which included going hitless in eight at-bats in the postseason, Schoop signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Twins, hoping to reignite his career.
In one of the most hitter-friendly parks in baseball, Schoop did see a bit of a resurgence with another 101 wRC+/23-home-run season, which was enough to earn him another one-year deal with the Detroit Tigers.
Schoop was still solid even in a difficult environment like Comerica Park. Although 2020 was the shortened season, his 117 wRC+ was the second best mark of his career, and his 1.5 fWAR in 44 games would of had him on pace for the best WAR of his career at 5.5.
Any hope at a rebound for Schoop was quickly dashed in 2023, though, after injuries again limited him to 55 games. He posted the first negative fWAR of his career at -0.3, a second straight season with a sub-60 wRC+ and his .202 batting average, .239 OBP and .561 OPS in 2022, all ranked worst among AL qualified hitters.
Schoop spent the 2024 season unsigned, and it doesn’t seem like a return to the big leagues is anywhere in the once promising second baseman’s future.
To answer the question of how such a unique skill set failed so quickly, we can look directly at the Baseball Savant data.
The most obvious catalyst is injuries, as excluding 2020 (shortened season), Schoop averaged just 126 games a season, which made it difficult to sustain any sort of consistency. Schoop was also never able to work out some of his drawbacks at the plate.
The now-33-year-old had one of the highest chase rates in all of baseball. Even in his breakout 2017 season, Schoop’s chase rate was in just the 16th percentile. Naturally, this also upped his strikeout rate and had him drawing very few walks, giving him really only two valuable traits: power and defense.
As the power began to drop off over the years, Schoop was quickly exposed as one of the game’s worst players. Even with good defense, there just wasn’t a spot for him in the league.
It’s not to say Schoop didn’t have success in the league. He was an All-Star in 2017, and his 106 home runs with the O’s is the most all-time among second basemen. However, the durability, along with the swing and miss concerns, never really subsided.
It’s really hard to find success when you can’t stay on the field and you are a low on-base percentage/high-strikeout hitter, as those profiles are almost always going to have volatile results.
All of these measurements played a large role in why Schoop never really lived up to his hype, especially after leaving Charm City.
What are your thoughts on the career of Jonathan Schoop? Let us know in the comments below! Make sure to follow The Baltimore Battery on Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok, and use the hashtag #baltimorebattery when sharing our content!
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