Milwaukee Brewers sign Michael Choice to minor league deal

The Milwaukee Brewers have filled the outfield spot that was vacated by the trade of Victor Roache, as today the team announced that they have signed free agent outfielder Michael Choice to a minor league deal and assigned him to AA Biloxi. Choice began the season with AAA Norfolk in Baltimore’s organization, but was released a couple of days ago after starting the season 1-26 in 10 games.

Choice, 27, began his career after being chosen as the 10th overall pick in the 2010 draft by the Athletics. He was a highly-touted prospect coming up through the ranks, with raw power being his loudest tool. Choice was ranked within the top-100 prospects by Baseball Prospectus in each season from 2011-2014, and he also made the Baseball America and MLB Pipeline top-100s in 2012 and 2014.

The native of Fort Worth, Texas has appeared in parts of three seasons in the major leagues: 2013 with Oakland and, after being dealt as a part of the Craig Gentry deal, 2014-15 with Texas. His most extensive action came in 2014 as a 24 year old, but he failed to impress with the Rangers that season. For his MLB career, he’s appeared in 96 games and owns a meager .188/.253/.320 slash (58 wRC+) with 9 home runs in an even 300 plate appearances, striking out 25.3% of the time while drawing free passes at only a 7.3% rate.

Choice has bounced around from the Rangers to the Indians to the Orioles and now the Brewers in the last few years, but he has yet to really come close to reprising the results that he posted earlier in his minor league career. He hit .246/.304/.456 with 14 home runs in 71 games for AAA Columbus in the Cleveland organization last season and owns a cumulative .271/.354/.456 slash with 95 home runs in 619 minor league games with a 24.5% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate. Choice played predominantly center field when he was younger, but has played almost exclusively in the corners for the last several years and has never been regarded as a particularly strong defender.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference