The Key to Alcides Escobar’s Bounce-Back Season

Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

When the Royals open the regular season on April 6 at Kauffman Stadium against the White Sox, Alcides Escobar is probably going to be leading off in the bottom of the first inning. Many people would prefer that not to be the case, and I would count myself among those many people. But this is Ned Yost‘s world, and we’re just living in it, so for now, I’ll accept it. If Escobar is going to collect more plate appearances than any other Royals batter, what kind of an impact will he have?

Escobar is coming off a respectable season at the plate, posting a 94 wRC+ in 620 plate appearances. That’s below average, but considering he’s a shortstop, it’s perfectly acceptable, and it ranked 5th out of 10 qualified shortstops in the AL. His 2014 was similar to his 2012, when he had a 97 wRC+ in 648 plate appearances, which ranked 5th out of 12.

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In between those two years was a season to forget, when Escobar had a measly 49 wRC+, putting him at the very bottom of the list of all batters. Not just in the league, but in the entire sport. You have to lower the minimum plate appearance threshold to 300 in order to find a batter who was worse offensively than Escobar. It was as much of a disaster as any individual season can be.

Before last season, I wrote about why Escobar was a candidate to bounce back, in part because it’s hard to be that bad in consecutive years, and also because his BABIP seemed completely out of whack with his batted ball profile. Sure enough, Escobar had a .326 BABIP last year, and his offense was just fine.

I wasn’t totally satisfied with that as the sole reason for Escobar’s improvement in 2014, so I dug a little deeper. There were some people who thought Escobar may have gotten a little pull-happy in 2013 after hitting some early dingers, and that he would be better served to hit the ball the other way more often. It makes sense on its face: Escobar isn’t a power hitter, so he may not want to rely on hitting the ball to left too often. Perhaps his rebound in 2014 was a result of hitting the ball to right field more frequently, rather than trying to pull the ball.

Below is a table of the percentage of batted balls hit to each part of the field in each of the past three seasons:

That distribution probably surprised you. I know it surprised me. Escobar pulled the ball far more often last season than he had in either of the two seasons prior. In fact, the season in which Escobar pulled the fewest batted balls was the season in which he was the worst hitter in baseball. He had an extremely balanced approach in 2013, and he hit more balls the other way that season than in the other two seasons, so maybe going the other way isn’t as productive.

Here are the wRC+ values for Escobar on each location since 2012:

Again, I was surprised by these numbers. Not that we should be surprised that hitters generally do more damage to their pull side, but the spread of the numbers is quite stark.

In 2014, Escobar was dreadful at hitting the ball to the right side, but was much better up the middle and to left. He was actually one of the most productive Royals when he pulled the ball, bested only by Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez.

There is likely some bad luck involved with his poor hitting to right, but it’s also possible that Escobar changed his approach to help him focus more on pulling the ball, which left him unable to hit balls with much authority to the opposite field. He’s also increased his line drive and fly ball rates to the pull side, while cutting down on ground balls, again possibly signifying an altered approach or swing path.

Escobar appeared to add some muscle mass before last season, so he and the coaching staff may have tried to take advantage of that added strength by focusing on pulling the ball. I haven’t read anything to confirm those theories, but they would make some sense.

In 2013, his biggest weakness was hitting it up the middle, although he didn’t really excel in the other areas, either. Escobar did well enough in 2012 when he hit the ball to all fields, although again we see his best numbers came when he hit it to left.

From this information, it seems logical to say that Escobar is at his best when he drives the ball to the left side. He is a much more dangerous hitter when he isn’t just trying to poke the ball to right field, and it seems opposing pitchers noticed that as well.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant, this is a map of all the fourseam fastballs Escobar saw in 2013, when he couldn’t do anything at the plate:

He didn’t make them pay when he came in his wheelhouse, because he didn’t really have a wheelhouse. Pitchers challenged him without concern. Now look at the same map for 2014.

Pitchers still threw a few inside fastballs, but mostly they stayed away. The scouting report on Escobar probably showed that he was punishing pitches on the inner half, and that it was safer to keep fastballs out of his new-found wheelhouse. I’m not sure we can say pitchers feared Escobar, but they certainly were aware of him.

There were other signs that pitchers were respecting his bat, too. Escobar saw a lower rate of fastballs in 2014 than he had in any season in his career. He also saw fewer pitches in the strike zone than ever before. That 50.1% Zone rate was nearly two percentage points lower than any other season in his career.

Granted, part of the reason pitchers didn’t throw as many balls in the zone is that Escobar will swing at just about everything, but he’s always been that way. Before 2014, pitchers weren’t worried about getting hurt by Escobar’s bat. Now, it seems they’re at least recognizing they have to approach him a bit differently to limit the damage he can do.

It remains to be seen what kind of adjustments we’ll see this year. If pitchers continue to throw fewer fastballs, while also keeping the ball on the outer half and off the plate, Escobar will need to start making better contact and get back to his previous level of production on opposite-field batted balls. As we saw in 2013, though, he can’t sell out for that right-field approach, because it saps too much of his offensive potential.

Escobar is never going to be Troy Tulowitzki at the plate. He’s not going to draw many walks, and he’s not going to hit for much power. That’s not ideal, but it’s still okay. He doesn’t even need to be above average with the bat to bring value to the team, thanks to his baserunning and defense.

However, we’ve seen Escobar do some positive things offensively, and many of those positive things come when he hunts for pitches he can pull. He doesn’t need to try and pull everything, of course, but if there’s a pitch over the plate, he’ll want to do what he did in 2014, and hit it to left. That’s where he can do the most damage. If he’s going to be the Royal with the most plate appearances this season, he might as well make the most of them.

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