Per a team release, the Orioles have signed shortstop Alcides Escobar to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Escobar will receive $700K if he cracks the big-league roster.
Escobar, 32, finally fell out of favor in Kansas City, where from 2015-18 his .251/.284/.336 (64 wRC+) line was the worst among all qualified regulars in the majors. Still, the 2015 All-Star has been remarkably durable throughout his big-league career, appearing in at least 140 games in each of the last nine seasons, and should at least offer defensive stability to a hazy Baltimore infield picture.
Escobar arrived to much fanfare in Kansas City after the 2010 trade that sent Zack Greinke to Milwaukee. He flashed his defensive chops early, posting 10 DRS and a 9.6 UZR rating in his first full season with the Royals, though his grounder-heavy bat was a harbinger of outs to come. After a slight lift-off the next season, Escobar again cratered offensively (a cringe-worthy 49 wRC+) in 2013 before leading a late-season charge to the pennant the following year. That 3.5 fWAR campaign would prove to be the shortstop’s high-water mark: discipline issues – a 4.1% career walk rate – sent the once-leadoff man to back-of-the-order rehab, from which he’d emerge only sporadically.
His long-heralded defense, too, has been anything but, according to the advanced metrics. DRS has rated Escobar below-league-average at the position in six of the last seven seasons, pegging him at a career-low -12 in 2018. UZR finally severed its sort-of attachment in 2016, but has never considered the former top 100 prospect a top-of-the-scale defender at the position.
Still, Escobar probably holds the inside track to the Oriole shortstop job in 2019. His competitors – Richie Martin, Drew Jackson, and maybe Jonathan Villar, who seems a better fit at second – haven’t much asserted themselves in recent years, and none are a sure bet to handle the rigors of the position on the regular.
This guy has a career OBP .293 and hasn’t had a season over .300 since 2014? How did he stay in the starting lineup for nearly every game in the bigs all this time? Is his defense that good?
He’s able to cover… All sides.
OBP isn’t everything, he’s a typical mid .250 batting average shortstop with above average fielding. That’ll keep you a job on half the teams in the league
Escobar was not an above average defensive SS. Also, OBP isn’t EVERYTHING, but it’s more important than SLG in both wRC+ and OPS+, and a career 70 wRC+ is awful, even for a SS, so he wasn’t hitting for average or power, and wasn’t getting on base in any other way. Escobar for some reason got the benefit of the doubt for 4 seasons, despite his wRC+ hovering in the 60s every one of those seasons, and his defense declining.
the Ryals seem to rate defense differently; they somehow thought Hosmer and Moustakas and Escobar were above-average defenders. They aren’t
Are you stupid?? Hosmer is a 4 time gold glove winner and Escobar has won one himself as well, not to mention moustakas is definitely a top ten defensive 3rd baseman. Idk what above average means to you but I think winning a gold glove pretty much puts you in the category of above average defenders. There aren’t many flukes or undeserving gold glove winners
then why’d he have to settle for a milb deal lol
It’s in the article.
And no.
KC isn’t exactly budding with quality players.
What a complete joke, even if it is a minor league deal. He’s not even replacement level.
ANd you don’t think there’s worse SS who have signed minor league deals? Was he supposed to be black balled from baseball? Indy league time? Beer league?
Replacement to who? It’s the Orioles
Things aren’t going much better over in Detroit….
I never said it was but things look much better for the future of the tigers versus Baltimore
Not real sure about that either. Farm systems aren’t too far apart and the orioles will be picking #1 instead of the middle of the pack. O’s play in a tougher division but I’ve yet to see any Tigers who I think are long term key pieces come up. The tigers are in slightly better shape but the gap is very small.
Tigers have a core rotation of 4-5 really good pitchers. Not to mention guys like Stewart meadows and Cameron in the outfield; also some quality middle infield depth so I’d say the farm system looks a lot better than the O’s
“Replacement to whom?”
Signed,
The Grammar Police
“To Protect and Serve”
LOL
Well he’s a good defense player and class act, so I’m glad he was able to secure a contract.
Not sure he is really that big of a class act. Go look up how he abandoned his first wife and child.
Have you seen the Orioles starters they don’t lose 100 games it’s as good as a world series for that bunch…
Good chance to start over Richie Martin
If Martin shows he can play a competent SS he’ll be the guy. We also took Drew Jackson. Same story with him. Unless the two of them look completely overmatched it’s going to be one of the two starting on opening day. Escobar is a decent depth option for the minors in case they’re really not ready to play. Our SS depth in the upper minors is non existent so there’s a clear spot for him in Norfolk….
There goes Machado reunion. #Kidding
Weird story about him. Back when the royals had their World Series ESPN tweeted ‘MVP’ Dad with a photo with him and his kid but I knew of a story where Escobar abandoned a gf and kid. So I posted under the ESPN post the article or post saying rethink what you’re posting. The next day alcides Escobar follows me on Twitter. So automatically I’m like wtf. 2 days later his ex contacts me on Twitter and corroborates the story. I started getting friend requests from all these Spanish guys on Facebook with no photos. Was weird as hell. During the World Series I sent him messages to see if I could mess with him lol he finally blocked me.
You’ve told this story multiple times, and STILL nobody cares.
I’ve never seen it. Why does everyone constantly bash other commenters on here? Seriously. So many keyboard warriors.
i’ve literally never told this story before, when else can i tell a story about Alcides Escobar? It’s a classic.
Then you copy pasted someone else telling this stupid story.
mlbtraderumors.com/2018/01/royals-resign-alcides-e…
Different screen name. Did you really dig that deep to call this guy out? Was it that important to you?
Rent free I guess, obviously you care that much if you have to dig back a year to try to prove someone wrong.
I am kind of curious though did you steal the story or is that you?
Escobar’s gonna have you whacked.
It’s me just an old account that I got logged out of.
Lol
I like this signing. There’s a chance the A’s can get Martin back with this.
lol, no.
Mike Elias isn’t going to cut Richie Martin for alcides Escobar. This is AAA depth in case of an injury. The Dodgers chances of getting Drew Jackson back slightly improved but even that would only be a small tick upward. Martin is longgone. A’s made their bed when they didn’t protect him.
The article said Escober has the inside track for the job. If they make him the starter and Martin is the backup, the A’s could definitely get him back if he is hitting poorly as a backup. Martin could win the job out of spring training, but he could come back even then if his bat turns sour.
This guy is completely speculating that. Theres no basis for his claim at all. We just signed this guy for 700K on a minor league deal. There’s no inside track for him. It’s the easiest path to playing time because we have two rule 5 guys but there’s no way we’d prefer Escobar to be our starter. We aren’t trying to win, we’re trying to collect future assets. Look at the old Houston Astros teams, that’s what elias is doing here. We’ll keep Martin no matter what. We’ve kept underperforming rule 5 guys on competitive clubs, let alone a piss poor one
Yeah, you’re probably right. I’d like to think there still could be a chance, however slim, if Escobar’s glove comes back to good form and Martin is overmatched in the majors. I didn’t understand the A’s not protecting him. I can think of a handful of guys they could have let go on the 40 man roster to make room. Brooks, Dull, and Canha come to mind.
The author of the article is clearly still in the mindset of the old Orioles. And, to be fair, if this were still Duquette and Showalter there would be a 90% probability of Escobar being the starting SS. However, with Elias in charge of building the roster, there is no way that Escobar makes the team ahead of Martin or Jackson unless one of them gets hurt long term or goes 0-for-Florida. My guess is that the two Rule 5 guys split ABs at the position and Escobar gets 450 ABs in Norfolk, unless he’s got an opt out date built into the minor league contract.
Lmao we’re not dumping a young richie martin in favor of alcides escobar
I’m unclear about the value of this signing. When I started reading it was,”ok they got a good defender who can’t hit. That’s fine.”
But then it was,”wait a second…he’s been terrible on defense for three years? And he’s older and slowing down? Then what purpose does he serve?
AAA depth. Guys like that get signed for AAA depth all the time if they still want to play.
There isn’t better AAA depth available?
He’s always been terrible with the bat and last couple years, bad with the glove too.
We lost all of our AAA SS’s. Valera,Vielma and Sardinas. Are any of them better than alcides? Probably about even but other orgs already scooped them up. Tim Beckham is better than all of them and is still unemployed. I imagine he doesn’t want to go to AAA though
Tim Beckham has a one-year contract ($1.75M) with the Seattle Mariners
I missed that one.
Total waste just give Martin the SS job
Martin still has the job. Do you know who our AAA SS is? We let Valera, Sardinas, and engelb Vielma go. That’s pure speculation by the author this post that Escobar has any inside track on the job. He is an insurance policy/minor league depth.
Because this is MLB and nothing is given to anyone. If Martin can’t beat a minor league signee out, then he doesn’t deserve the SS job.
They should sign Jose Iglesias. It’s the only team he could still start for and his defense might help some of their younger pitchers.
It’s a minor league deal, you clods.
I would take him any day and that contract over Troy “ Getahurtski” the Yankees just paid seven times on.
Uh troy cost league minimum 550,000 I think…he’s a gift from the bluejays
I can’t even believe I’m doing this, but in his defense. When Ned actually started resting him in second half of the last season, instead of playing him every game. His BA jumped up to about .297 and his OB jumped up to .345. Maybe if Yost rested him more, he might have been less crappy…. Maybe…
As a Royals fan – Alcides has obviously been part of the team and city for a long time. Above average defense and speed. The thing that always drove me nuts about him was that he would never accept who he was at the plate.
When he would focus on going opposite field he could get on a solid run of hitting line drives over 2B and contribute offensively. Then he’d accidentally run into one and hit one of his 3 HRs of the year – which would be followed by weeks of him being pull happy trying to hit another.
I’d rather see Richie as the starter, Drew Jackson as the super utility guy (inf/of) and alberto as the utility infielder
More ceiling than Escobar. With Escobar, you know your getting nothing offensively. At least Alberto makes contact.
Does this have any impact on Yolbert Sanchez?
Esky gets to more balls than the average MLB shortstop can. He sometimes fumbles one of those balls this driving his defensive stats down. Hes a gold glove defender. When he hits to the opposite field hes great. But with that little ballpark in Baltimore he will probably hit 10 homeruns. You better just hope he doesn’t get pull happy. Good luck Esky. Gonna miss you in KC.
A fan favorite for sure. People that just try to read the stat lines don’t get it. He was reliable and ready to play 140+ games a year for a decade straight. He made spectacular defensive plays albeit not as many in later years. Really enjoyed his time in kc and he’ll be missed.
I want no part of this clown on my team, even on a minor league deal. That’s all they need is some hacker with zero power screwing up actual prospects.
Thanks for the memories and that Esky magic. I’ll never forget that 2015 WS Game 1 inside the parker and the flashy glove but it was time to move on a while ago. Best of luck to the guy.
gonna miss Esky, he has a strong arm, a good relay arm probably one of the best his defense more than makes up for his bat
He’s gonna be the starting shortstop.