Eduardo Escobar (3B, ARI) - Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

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.

More Fantasy Baseball Values and Sleepers

Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 24

There are only two weeks left of fantasy baseball! It's going to be very sad when the season comes to an end, but the impending end of the season means that these are the most important, and therefore most fun weeks of the year – for those of you still competing, at least. I have... Read More

Jon Anderson 2 years ago

Are You For Real? Surprising MLB Pitcher Starts from Week 23

Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors. The NL Central is our center of attention this week, as we'll be looking at... Read More

Elliott Baas 2 years ago

MLB Pitcher Studs and Duds - Advanced Metrics Leaders for wOBA (Week 23)

Welcome back to fantasy baseball and RotoBaller’s Statcast Pitcher Studs and Duds article series! Each week, I select one advanced metric, choose two pitchers with strong values and two with poor values, and analyze what those values may mean for future performance. This week, I will focus on a stat that describes how pitchers have... Read More

Connelly Doan 2 years ago

Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 23

Hey RotoBallers! It's Jon Anderson, back again for one of the final weeks of hitter streamers. We've found a bunch of exciting hitters for next week with some incredible hitting environments on tap! Your league is probably in the fantasy playoffs now or entering them next week, so some big, tough decisions are ahead. I... Read More

Jon Anderson 2 years ago

Are You For Real? Surprising MLB Pitcher Starts from Week 22

Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors. We're sticking to the east coast this week, with three arms in the eastern divisions... Read More

Elliott Baas 2 years ago

Download Our Free Draft App

Like what you see? You can download our free fantasy baseball mobile app for iPhone and Android which includes more draft sleepers at very position, 24x7 player news, notifications, injury alerts and daily articles... all free!

Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App