Choo's motor not slowing down with age

March 24th, 2017

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- is equal parts eager to please and impossible to satisfy. He expects so much from himself that when things inevitably go awry somewhere in the midst of a 162-game schedule, he wears those struggles on his sleeve, feeling he's let both himself and his team down. That's how it's been for the entirety of Choo's Major League career, and that was especially how it was in a lost 2016 that saw him make four trips to the disabled list.
Having played alongside Choo previously, Mike Napoli knows this. And so when Napoli re-arrived to the Rangers early in this spring camp and moved into a locker positioned not-so-coincidentally near that of Choo, he began what has been an ongoing process of getting Choo to lighten up, ease the pressure he places on himself and ease the burdens of his daily prep.
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"Have fun, let it go," Napoli said. "Don't keep everything inside. Enjoy everybody here."
Napoli gave Choo a little line to rehearse, to reassure himself that he's in command of any given moment. Unfortunately, the line is not PG enough to be repeated here, so just know that it's an in-house joke about the size of Choo's bank account -- something that ought to allow him to have at least a little swagger.
"I need to be a little bit cocky," Choo joked. "Just one percent."
Of course, it is the seven-year, $130 million contract Choo signed prior to 2014 that amplifies his desire to be great. He acknowledges his time in Texas has fallen short of expectation.
"The fans here, the ownership, JD [president of baseball operations Jon Daniels], everybody -- I owe them something," Choo said. "I have to do something to pay them back."
This season, that something is not just embracing the fun of the game again but also embracing -- as best he can -- a new role as a primary designated hitter.
Choo first heard rumblings that he might be headed for more days as a DH in media reports over the offseason, and they seemed strong enough to prompt him to call up manager Jeff Banister and ask what the plan was.
"He told me, 'We'll figure it out in Spring Training,'" Choo said.
Once here at the Rangers' facility, Choo and Banister sat together and discussed why it is important for the club to reconfigure Choo's role. It's not just the abuse the body takes with the daily grind of outfield play, though that is of course part of the equation. It's also the improved athleticism offered by . And infielder showed himself to be an outfield asset during the World Baseball Classic.
"Yeah, I saw," Choo said. "Impressive. You look in this clubhouse, and we have a lot of options to play in the outfield."
There was a time when Choo brought a ton of value to a ballclub with his defense -- especially his cannon of an arm in right field -- but that value has been impacted by age. Choo has been worth minus-28 Defensive Runs Saved in the past three seasons.
Though the 34-year-old Choo is insistent that he can still make a positive impact in the field, Banister is an effective communicator who got Choo to understand where the Rangers -- who were minus-11 in DRS in their outfield last season -- are coming from.
"I'm here to be in the World Series," Choo said. "Everybody here has one goal. We come from different countries, different areas, to come here and win as a team. I talked to Banny. A long conversation. And whatever makes the team better, I'm happy to do it."
To a point.
"Not 150 games [at] DH," Choo said. "Not like or ."
Asked how many times he'd like to play the field in a given week, Choo said, "Twice."
It remains to be seen if Banister will be able to satiate Choo in that regard. Banister didn't want to peg Choo to a certain percentage of time at DH, because the season evolves and things happen that are out of the manager's control. But he does see the DH spot as a place to build in rest for Napoli, , and , so that should buy Choo time in the outfield.
Wherever he plays, Choo simply hopes to stay healthier than he did last year. He said his body felt as good last spring as it ever had in his career. And then, well, Choo strained his calf during batting practice in the second series of the season. Then he came back, played one game and strained his hamstring. Then he had back inflammation. Then he fractured his forearm on a hit by pitch.
"That's a bad year," Choo said.
A bad year can beat up a player's mind as much as his body, and Choo has a tendency to get distracted by the downturns more than most. So his nearness to a positive presence like Napoli -- which, again, is no accident -- is, as Banister put it, "a good combination."
"I've had so much fun with him this spring," Napoli said. "I'm just letting him know, 'It's OK.' We all have his back and we expect big things out of him. We know when he's on the field and healthy, we can get big things out of him."