Schoop comp: Alfonso Soriano?

[Frobby]

In the bumped Parra for Davies thread, Can_of_corn bumped an old post by weams saying that Jonathan Schoop had a 15% chance of having the ceiling of Alfonso Soriano. I thought that was a kind of interesting comp, hence this thread. (Note that weams' comment was from before the 2016 season, so obviously Schoop is seen in a somewhat different light now.)

So far, Schoop has a career .255/.287/.438 slash line, and this year he's at .289/.320/.503. Soriano's career slash line was .270/.319/.500. It should be noted that Soriano played in Japan as a young man, and didn't really play full-time in the big leagues until he was 26, whereas Schoop is 24 now.

Anyway, if you just want to discuss hitting, without getting into speed (where Soriano had a big advantage) or defense (where Schoop is far superior), it is not a bad comp. It's a much better comp than the Cano comps I hear people throwing out there.

[Can_of_corn]

Someone posted a well reasoned comp to Tejada a few weeks ago.

I am still very much up in the air when it comes to Schoop's future. Obviously he is having a great season, and he is still young which works in his favor. His skill set worries me, I have to think that there will always be a lot of season to season variance in his results.

[Orange]

Bret Boone: .266/.325/.442... Only stole about 8 bags a year which is more than Schoop but I wouldn't say Boone was a speed demon... Really strong defensively and hit 252 bombs, including 19 or more for seven years in a row. Rookie at age 23 and began to see significant time at age 24... A year or two later than Schoop. Pretty good comp.

[bpilktree]

Bret Boone: .266/.325/.442... Only stole about 8 bags a year which is more than Schoop but I wouldn't say Boone was a speed demon... Really strong defensively and hit 252 bombs, including 19 or more for seven years in a row. Rookie at age 23 and began to see significant time at age 24... A year or two later than Schoop. Pretty good comp.

Boone only had one season over .270 up til age 32 and only 2 with more then 20 homers. Boone never had any power until the big steroid peak.

[sylvester]

I think the Soriano bat comparison is spot on. Both have tremendous power and both are free swingers.

[TINSTAAPP]

Pudge Rodriguez is a better comparison for Schoop. They play different positions but their skillsets are much more similar (very good power, extremely low walk rate, tremendous arm and defense). Soriano's walk rate was only really bad for his first couple seasons with the Yankees. He had three seasons where he had a walk rate over 8.0%. I'll be surprised if Schoop ever has a year with a walk rate that high.

[BarclaySouthway]

If Schoop becomes a good-fielding Soriano, hey sign me up.

He's a tough comp because there aren't many big, slugging 2nd basemen like him. All I could come up with were Ron Gant and Jeff Kent.

[isestrex]

Schoop is Dan Uggla with a better glove.

[Can_of_corn]

Schoop is Dan Uggla with a better glove.

Schoop is currently two years younger than Uggla was when he made his ML debut.

I'll be pretty disappointed with an Uggla career arc.

[sportsfan8703]

Wow did not realize that Schoop only has 13 BB's this year, and that's tied for his career high. He's still a beast though.

[Can_of_corn]

Wow did not realize that Schoop only has 13 BB's this year, and that's tied for his career high. He's still a beast though.

He actually had seven in a month.

I'd actually be fairly pleased with seven a month.

[isestrex]

Schoop is currently two years younger than Uggla was when he made his ML debut.

I'll be pretty disappointed with an Uggla career arc.

Uggla had a great peak of 125-136 OPS+. He hit for more power than Schoop is showing but a lower AVG. The problem is that the peak lasted 3 years. I agree that if he has Uggla's short career arc it will be a huge disappointment. But I think Schoop's raw hitting skills are very very similar to Uggla (which is a good thing).

[Catch 8]

Soriano was lean with incredible wrist strength. Schoop strikes me more as beefy. The height is similar, and both get great extension. I'm pretty sure Soriano carried one of the heavier bats in the league, does anyone know how heavy Schoop's bats are?