RADIO
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 260
CURRENT ADP: ~278 overall
ANALYSIS: Eduardo Escobar was a player that was expected to regress from the big year he had in 2019. The juiced ball really assisted the power that year and it was a clear outlier. However, we saw Escobar regress a little too much in 2020. He hit just .212 and four home runs. The counting stats were lackluster and there just was not a lot going for him. However, he did get unlucky. The BABIP was a lowly .244. Escobar is not one for high BABIP but with a career .283 BABIP, he would’ve likely bounced back. The expected batting average (xBA) was .263. This is 51 points higher than the actual batting average and more in line with the career .257 hitter he is. The home runs should have been expected to regress as he was a 21 home run guy in 2017 and followed that up with 23 home runs in 2018 prior to the power explosion in 2019 where he posted the 35.
When looking deeper, some of the plate discipline and the power metrics were essentially in line with his 2019 production. The issue may have been the quality of contact as his barrel rate of 5.5% and Sweet Spot% of 34.8% were both the lowest marks since 2016. Escobar even improved on the contact rates across the board and in doing so cut down on the swing-and-miss. Escobar is not flashy, but he should be hitting towards the middle of the order and playing every day. There is no reason he cannot get back to the 20-to-25 home run production while hitting .250-to-.260 in the process with a healthy amount of R+RBI.
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