Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus and the Perils of BABIP
Going into the season, we ranked Elvis Andrus seventh and Alcides Escobar 19th. At the end of the season, Andrus was 12th and Escobar was sixth. And yet, they’re still the same person. That’s the perils of depending on the ball in play for your value.
Let’s just look at a table comparing these two shortstops on some key peripherals as they are projected for next year.
| BB% | K% | ISO | SB/PA | SPD | BSR | GB/FB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elvis Andrus | 7.7% | 13.7% | 0.076 | 0.042 | 5.2 | 3.6 | 2.7 |
| Alcides Escobar | 4.1% | 13.6% | 0.087 | 0.038 | 5.7 | 3.0 | 1.6 |
Escobar is 27, Andrus is 26, and it’s very difficult to tell them apart if you don’t leave their name on the player page. And yet they switched spots in the rankings this year.
Of course, the obvious punchline is that Andrus had a .305 batting average on balls in play and Escobar had a .326, and their teams provided them different opportunities for scoring runs and RBI. But those BABIPs are close and Escobar only scored 11 more runs and RBI this year. That’s probably why I’ll rank Andrus above Escobar going forward — the Rangers’ lineup should get better with healthier players, and Andrus didn’t have much batted ball luck inflation in his line.
But you will notice that their batted ball mixes aren’t quite the same. Escobar hits the ball in the air some more, has a bit more power, and pops it up more. Jeff Zimmerman has an xBABIP based on hard-hit balls data from Inside Edge, and that formula pops out .310 for Escobar and .284 for Andrus. So if they really are so equal, you might expect Escobar to be a bit better than Andrus based on those factors. Maybe Escobar should be ahead next year.
They’ll be tough to rank. Since, for fantasy, aren’t they really the same guy? A few points of batting average, a homer and a stolen base or three, and a few team-based effects will separate them next year. It’s not worth paying a premium for either.
It might not really be a great to draft either unless you can draft both, either. Consider the case of Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera hasn’t always had a great BABIP, but his .272 this year was his career-worst effort. And yet, even with the bad batted ball luck, Cabrera ended up ahead of Andrus in the end-of-season ranks. That’s what power will do for you. (14 homers counts as power from a shortstop these days.) Without power, the Andruses and Escobars are reliant on the bouncing ball’s fortune to provide most of their value.
So, if you count Alcides Escobar’s 2014 as the best your Andrus/Escobar pairing might be able to do with good BABIP luck, and Elvis Andrus‘ 2014 as the worst you might be able to do, consider that guys like Jhonny Peralta and Asdrubal Cabrera have a range of outcomes that probably outpace the Andrus/Escobar range on both ends. Will their price outstrip what it would cost to buy both Escobar and Andrus, which is what it might take to try and ‘guarantee’ you get the 2014 Escobar in 2015? Probably not.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Andrus and Escobar may have the same underlying numbers coming into the year, but I don’t think most people were depending upon BABIPs to separate the two of them.
Andrus was much safer due having a better track record, hitting at the top of the order, and on the better team. The majority of Elvis Andrus’s lost value was due to his team. He had about 40 less R+RBI this year. He had stolen 30-40 for a few years expected for 2012.
Escobar was expected to be a bottom of the order presence hindering his counting stats and steals.