Alcides Escobar

Is Alcides Escobar Losing A Step On Defense?

We’ve discussed Alcides Escobar and his (lack of) offense at length. Today, let’s do something a little different. Let’s shine a light on his defense.

“Why do that?” you may be asking yourself. After all, this is the guy who has played exceptional shortstop since arriving in Kansas City. That defense culminated in his first Gold Glove last year for the World Champions. I know, I know. This may be an exercise in futility, but through the first quarter of the season, something seems a little off about Escobar in the field this year. He’s still making the great plays, but there seems to be a few more clunkers than we’re used to seeing.

For example, Escobar made a couple of sterling plays this weekend against the White Sox. Here, he robs his old teammate Melky Cabera, ranging to his right to snare a grounder before executing a perfect jump-throw.

I mean, just look at this.

Amazing.

But on Friday, in a key situation in the late innings, he couldn’t cleanly come up with a ball hit to his left. He also  had a difficult moment dealing with a sharp grounder with some lateral spin that skipped into center field. Neither play was critical (hence no video from MLB.com) yet both felt uncharacteristic of the Escobar we’ve seen up the middle the past several seasons for the Royals.

Of course, there’s plenty of room for interpretation when discussing defense. I’ll try to present both what I’ve seen, along with the metrics. Let’s see where we end up.

The Eye Test

While I find defensive metrics to be useful and interesting to examine, I’m in the camp that says they have a long way to go before we can definitively declare that “Player X” is a really great fielder. That means I’ll lean a bit on the old eye test.

My untrained eyes tell me that while Escobar is capable of ranging to his right for an often spectacular defensive play, he struggles going up the middle to field. It seems that while he may charge to flash the leather between short and third, his footwork is a little less certain when he’s ranging to his left. It’s such that he can appear just a step slow when heading toward second base. It also seems to me he can get complacent (that’s a nice word for lazy) when fielding a routine play, so he can get caught by a ball with the odd spin like we saw on Friday. The highlight reel? He’s there. It’s the ordinary that can frustrate.

The arm remains strong. His throws on cutoffs are deadly accurate and the scoop-ability of his first baseman gives Escobar the luxury of bouncing throws on difficult plays like the ones we saw above. There are times his footwork will drag and he’ll uncork a wild throw, but he doesn’t seem any different from other top defensive shortstops in frequency of bad throws. Certainly having Eric Hosmer across the diamond doesn’t hurt.

The Metrics

According to The Fielding Bible, between 2011 and 2014, Escobar averaged 72 Great Fielding Plays (GFP) per season. That’s an amazing number of great plays he’s been making. On the flip side, he also averaged 34.5 Defensive Misplays (DM). That’s an amazing number of misplays. It’s kind of mind boggling that a player of Escobar’s defensive capability, has the proclivity to kick so many plays that would be described as “easy” or “routine.”

Last year, Escobar’s notable plays were down on both sides. The Fielding Bible graded Escobar as making 50 GFPs and 25 DMs. That 2:1 ratio is pretty much in line with his career numbers with the Royals.

So far in 2016, Escobar has made 13 GFPs against just five DMs. If we use the just-passed quarter point to extrapolate the numbers (it’s easy math, thank you very much) that works out to a full season with 52 GFPs which is right in line with his total last year. And if we crunch the numbers for the DMs, he would have 20 by the end of the season. Again, fairly close again to his 2015 numbers.

The Fielding Bible also has a plus/minus rating, which tells you how many plays are made (or aren’t made) by a fielder ranging to his left, right or in the middle. Escobar has historically graded poorly on balls hit straight at him, finishing with a minus rating every year since his first in Kansas City. Same for balls hit to his left, where he has ranged from a -5 (in 2011) to a 0 (in 2014). It’s to his right where Escobar really shines. He was +19 in 2011 and last year was at +8. He reaches more batted balls to his right than just about any shortstop in the universe. Going back to the eye test, this confirms my suspicions that he’s exceptional going to his right, but doesn’t always make the plays he should to his left.

Here at Baseball Prospectus, we have our own metric, Fielding Runs Above Average. There’s quite a bit of info folded into FRAA, including batter-handedness, pitcher tendencies, and park effects. A simple way to remember the full season numbers are anything in double-digits is considered outstanding. Anything above five is great. Average is around zero. Here are your top five shortstops for 2015:

SS_FRAA_2015

I realize looking at the above list, there may be some quibbles as to the rankings of elite defensive shortstops. Understood. It’s merely presented here for reference, and to give perspective as to how one particular system generally rated Escobar. Looking deeper into the numbers, that 7.2 FRAA for Escobar represents a career high. That places him the “very good” cohort, but not quite “world class” at shortstop according to FRAA. Still, it’s a damn fine number.

Obviously, the leaderboard looks completely different though the first quarter of the season.

SS_FRAA_2016

Escobar is currently 11th among shortstops with a 0.7 FRAA. Obviously, that’s well off his pace from last summer, but it’s still possible for a defender to get hot (just like a hitter) and Escobar is one of those types of players. We kind of saw that in action in this most recent series.

Inside Edge also collects defensive data. They break down plays into containers giving percentages a type of play is made. For example, there’s an “unlikely” container and one labeled “routine.” Since for the purpose of this exercise, we’re looking at the routine, Escobar’s numbers are slightly down this year. So far, he’s converted just under 95 percent of his “routine” plays for outs. Last year, that number was almost 98 percent. His success rate on “routine” puts him 25th out of 29 qualified shortstops. By comparison, Zack Cozart, Freddy Galvis, and Xander Bogaerts are all perfect when making that particular play.

Escobar is close enough to his career numbers in making the “routine” play, that he can still get hot with the glove and make up ground over the remainder of the season. But those Inside Edge numbers don’t like (and they’re the basis for this article), Escobar has been a little off at times in 2016.

Conclusion

While it may seem he’s making a few more miscues in the early going, Escobar is close to the same defender we’ve seen over the last five-plus seasons in Kansas City. He’s capable of frustrating you with lackadaisical play on the seemingly routine grounders, but in a flash he can turn a play that will leave your jaw on the floor. With just a quarter of a season of data, it’s too early to declare whether or not he’s lost a step, diminishing his range, or if his throws are suddenly scattershot across the diamond. Yet there are some early trends that can’t – and shouldn’t – be ignored. Is it just early season lack of focus? Or part of a larger issue? We can’t say for sure at this point, but it bears watching.

Truth be told, Escobar is probably a bit overrated as a defender. A Gold Glover? There are certainly better overall defensive shortstops in baseball. And Escobar clearly benefits from having one of the better first basemen in the game fielding his throws.

While we’ve seen some subpar defense at times from Escobar so far in 2016, it’s not all that different from what we’ve seen in seasons past. There are still too many miscues for a player of his caliber, but that’s the way it’s always been for Escobar. You take the odd blunder in exchange for two or three spectacular plays.

Now, is his glove enough for us to ignore what is becoming an atrocious offensive skill set? That’s a question for another post.

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