Sky…I haven’t heard that name in years. It’s true, it’s been a hot minute since I last saw all your beautiful, shiny internet faces and by beautiful, I mean awful and by shiny, I mean oily. You know it’s 2019 and you can take your iPad outside, right? Sunlight kinda helps with that problem, my peeps. But whatever…whaddup, my Beaches! I’ll be the Barbara Hershey to your Bette Midler today as we do some exploring about Ji-Man Choi for 2019 fantasy baseball today cuz gee man, Ji-Man is thee man, who’s kinda built like He-Man if He-Man were Babe Ruth, you see man? I promise that wasn’t rapping and I also promise to never, ever do that again for everyone’s sake, but only if you promise to read on. Here’s my take on why Choi is my boi this year and a great 2019 fantasy baseball sleeper…
To understand why I’m all Psych Popcorn gif – google it, I’m not giving you no links – about Ji-Man Choi this year, you have to understand the opportunity and the juxtaposition. Firstly, let’s cover that oppo we got going. Over the winter, the Tampa Bay Rays traded Jake Bauers to the Indians in exchange for Yandy Diaz. Insignificant, you say. So what, your mom bellows down to you in the basement. Who fawkin cays, your Italian Uncle Francesco yells. Well, the only thing truly preventing Choi an opportunity at getting 1B eligible at the start of this year was Bauers, and that competition now resides in Cleveland. This argument obviously isn’t the biggest most important part of it all, but it’s a good lead in to the juxtaposition.
Player A: 47 GP, 161 PA, 15 HRs, BABIP .365 with a 9%/44%/47% split for soft, medium and hard contact, an ADP around 190, and will be 28 in February.
Player B: 61 GP, 221 PA, 10 HR, BABIP .315, with a 13.9%/42.3%/43.8% split for soft, medium, and hard contact, an ADP around 513, and will be 28 in May.
Yeah, you already went and searched so it doesn’t matter but Player A is Luke Voit and Player B is my boi Choi. I bring all this up not to thrash on Voit, but to point out that a lot of what makes Luke a sexy sleeper pick for 2019 can easily be said regarding Choi. The reality is, their storyline – and their statline – are about as similar as you could get. Both came out of nowhere in 2018 to become fantasy relevant and at an age no one fully expects to see a breakout from players who were viewed as nothing more than organizational depth for years. Sure, Luke’s numbers are eye popping but every article you read about him for 2019 says to pull back hard on the reins in terms of expectations, like Grey’s Luke Voit 2019 Fantasy Baseball Sleeper post. Neither are promised a starting job coming in to spring training, neither field the ball particularly well, and neither player will respond to my twitter DMs. The same I tell ya! The one minor stipulation I’ll add is if they both pan out, Voit will still likely finish the year with more ABs than Choi simply because Ji-Man can’t hit lefties. But bench him on days where it’s a lefty on the mound and enjoy .260 with 25 to 30 bombs when he’s in. By the power of Grayskull, I HAVE THE POWERRRRR…to draft Choi in all my deep leagues this year.
