Archive for Eduardo Escobar

Though they have different types of fantasy appeal, Whit Merrifield and Eduardo Escobar have a few things in common. Both were late bloomers, and both will turn 31 before the start of spring training next year. Both players qualified to be eligible at second base in fantasy leagues in 2020. They will also head into the coming season having accrued nearly the same value in standard 5×5 Roto leagues in 2019. Escobar ranked fifth among second basemen with $20.8 in value, while Merrifield was one spot behind him with $20.3 in value.

Despite being at the same point on the aging curve, Merrifield and Escobar will enter 2020 on different trajectories. Nearly across the board, Merrifield’s skill indicators held steady, and he improved as a run producer, but because his stolen base total plunged from 45 to 20, he lost $5.3 in value. He also fell from ranking second in Roto value at second base in 2018. Meanwhile, Escobar added $9.2 in value, increasing his home run total from 23 to 35, his RBI total from 84 to 118 and his run total 75 to 94. These surges far outstripped the slightly more than 10 percent increase he achieved in plate appearances in his first full season with the Diamondbacks.
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Even if you don’t own a turntable, it’s time to shop for some 33s.

Each Thursday, I’ll be recommending hitters to pick up who are owned in 33 percent of leagues or fewer on CBSSports.com and Fantrax. I’ve chosen to use these sites’ ownership rates as a guide, as they tend to be higher than those on ESPN or Yahoo. If I were to use the latter two sites as a guide for identifying players who are available in at least two-thirds of leagues, in reality, some of those players would be unavailable to many owners who play on CBS and Fantrax.
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I always enjoy a quality theme when composing these tiers. From Kurt Russell movies to hard rock bands to vacation destinations, I’ve had a healthy variety of themes. With WrestleMania coming up this weekend, I considered some sort of wrestling theme. However, my writing is frequently littered with wrestling references — both obvious and subtle — on a regular basis, so using it as a tier theme could amount to overkill.

For this first set of tiered rankings, I decided on the theme of Final Four teams. The main reason I settled on this theme is that I’m only splitting the players into four tiers this month. As the season gets underway, more clear delineations will likely develop within the tiers, and I’ll probably add more to reflect that.

As of right now, however, there’s just not much separating most of these guys right now. My second tier stretches all the way from No. 6 to No. 20, with much of the tier separated by extremely small gaps. For example, would it be surprising at all if Josh Harrison (No. 14) outperformed Ben Zobrist (No. 9), despite the fact that I have Zobrist five spots higher? That’s a pretty good illustration of how tightly grouped the players within these tiers are heading into the season.

If I forgot any players who you think should be on this list, please let me know in the comments section below and I’ll update it. For reference, I used Yahoo’s position eligibility requirements.

TIER ONE – NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS – (No. 1-5)
Jose Altuve
Dee Gordon
Robinson Cano
Ian Kinsler
Brian Dozier

Being the sole 1-seed remaining, UNC is obviously the favorite to take home the title. Of the Final Four teams, the Tar Heels are the one squad that was largely expected to be here all along, and they’re the total package. They should cruise to the championship game with little resistance. HOT TAKE: When you rank No. 2 out of 351 teams in both offensive efficiency and rebounding, you’re going to win a lot of games.

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It’s been a weird week for me, delaying this article by four days. I originally intended to have this up by Monday, but a spontaneous — and completely awesome — decision to attend the NCAA Tournament provided the first delay. I got to see Oklahoma/VCU and the historically unprecedented Texas A&M win over Northern Iowa, so I didn’t feel too bad about being a day late.

Unfortunately, I got myself concussed in a fender-bender the next day (not my fault!), and spent the last few days listlessly staring out my window, the owner of a half-working brain. Hopefully, I’ve recovered enough for the following to make sense, but the fact that my 31st birthday looms this coming Monday means I’m in the midst of my annual birthday-related existential crisis, brain injury or not.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s Bold Predictions time! I did pretty darn well two years ago, but last year my success rate was roughly equivalent to that of the Brooklyn Brawler. (Fun fact: The Brawler briefly performed in WWF as “The MVP” Abe Knuckleball Schwartz, a bad-guy persona used to rile up fans during the MLB strike of ’94.) Let’s turn the clock back to 2014 and get my boldness rate back to the sweet spot.

Here are my ten Bold Predictions for 2016, roughly arranged in ascending order from safest to craziest:

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher, despite throwing 200+ innings for the tenth straight year.

How do we value a 34-year-old coming off a season like Shields just had? He logged over 200 innings and made his annual 33 starts, but posted his worst-ever walk rate — and it’s not even close — at 3.60 BB/9. His HR/FB ballooned to another career worst, at 17.6%. Shields also experienced career bests in two areas, strikeouts (yay!) and strand rate (hmm…).

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One of the most pleasant surprises of 2015 has been the performance of the Minnesota Twins. Even if they fail to capture a wild card spot, this season has surpassed any reasonable Twins fan’s expectations. A team that appeared to be in the midst of a full rebuild ended up as a legitimate playoff contender, and one of the unexpected bright spots is their largely unheralded super-utilityman, Eduardo Escobar.

The switch-hitting Escobar entered the year as a bench player for the Twins, one whose versatile glove could plug a number of holes. Case in point: In his first four defensive appearances in April, he played four different positions (2B, 3B, SS, LF). Through July 31, he had 27 starts in left field, 20 at shortstop, seven as the designated hitter, five at third base and two at second.

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