Royals extend Alcides

[jerichoholicninja]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/03/royals-extend-alcides-escobar.html

 

4 years, club options for 2016 and 2017. No financial details yet.

 

Without the money it's tough to have much of an opinion on this but his bat has done nothing to get him an extension so far.

[Outlander]

Guaranteeing $10 million to Escobar seems a little high to me but I guess the Royals feel he has decent potential.

[Invader3K]

I'm glad we raded him, to be frank. I bought into his hype when he was a prospect, and thought he was going to be great based on his limited playing time in 2009, but after that he didn't bring much to the table. If the Royals are content with him, good for them I guess.

[monty57]

I think extensions like this, Yuni continuing to be employed and Bianchi being plucked off waivers a couple of times shows the lack of quality SS around these days.

 

Good for Escobar to get this security. If KC's happy with him, good for them. They've got a lot of good young talent, so it's probably good for them to lock some of it up.

[RockCoCougars]

Wow.....that's the nicest thing that I can say to the Royals brass for this one.

[Ennder]

Pretty low risk move on the Royals part. He is already a 1+ WAR player from defense alone, if the bat comes around they suddenly get a big bargain. Obviously depends on the money.

[Thurston Fluff]

If defensive WAR was at all indicative of anything I guess I'd get excited about +1 WAR for defense alone. As it is based on a calculation using well under the necessary numbers to be anywhere near accurate it's less than worthless. It's misleading.

[Ennder]

If defensive WAR was at all indicative of anything I guess I'd get excited about +1 WAR for defense alone. As it is based on a calculation using well under the necessary numbers to be anywhere near accurate it's less than worthless. It's misleading.

 

I wasn't really using defensive UZR here but even assuming that you do it would be talking 3 years of data which is not worthless. He is one step below an elite defensive SS and a bad hitter but still an above replacement level player, he is below an average player. That puts him at something like 0.5 to 1.5 WAR which is about where he has ended up so far in his career. Nothing misleading at all about it.

 

You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend defense doesn't exist so you have to find some way to assign a value to it. I tend to use a combination of stats, reputation and the eye test and they all point to him being a good defensive SS so I don't see any reason to doubt it.

[Thurston Fluff]

I wasn't really using defensive UZR here but even assuming that you do it would be talking 3 years of data which is not worthless.

 

If I mistook your comment about him having a +1 WAR on defense alone wrongly I apologize. I just assumed you meant his WAR was +1 using UZR (or some version of it) since that is what is used in when calculating WAR. I may also be mistaken but I seem to remember reading WAR uses one year of UZR it's calculation not three for each. so regardless of how many years of WAR you take you are still using an insufficient number in each one to represent defense. Three wrong numbers don't suddenly make a right one.

 

You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend defense doesn't exist so you have to find some way to assign a value to it. I tend to use a combination of stats, reputation and the eye test and they all point to him being a good defensive SS so I don't see any reason to doubt it.

 

There is a difference between knowing it exists and accepting the system used to describe it's value has any use in assessing said value. To say we have to find a way to represent it means we have to accept a faulty way of representing it is kind of iffy at best. It just leads to a false sense of certainty. In the thread about WAR a couple months ago one of the things even WAR defenders commented on was WAR was misused. Since that time I have seen it continuously be misused. Your comment included. Wasn't that comment the very definition of using mixing up predictive and counting stats?

I am all for using his defense to say it isn't a bad signing. In fact I agree with you. I am less for saying his +1 WAR created mainly on defensive metrics represents an accurate version of that defense. And way less sold that it can be used to asses weather he will meet the value of his new contract.

[Ennder]

Last year the stats say he was a 2.2 WAR player with more than 3 WAR coming from defense, so he was worth around $10M for one year from a pure stat standpoint. I agree that I'd take that with a grain of salt considering most of the value comes from fielding (some from baserunning). Over the past 3 years he has put up 1.1 WAR per year and has a UZR/150 of 5.9 which seems a reasonable number. He isn't an amazing player in any way but he has some value for sure. His strong defense makes this hard to be a bad signing and his offense does have at least some upside which could make it a good one.

[3and2Fastball]

I've always liked Escobar's potential. He has a plus glove. SS is such a premium position of need in MLB right now that, depending on the $$$, this makes a lot of sense

[sveumrules]

Whether you're using UZR, DRS or EYES Escobar is worth this deal for his glove alone.

[TooLiveBrew]

EYES

 

That's my new favorite.

 

This is $10.5M minimum (4 seasons), $21.75M max (6 seasons). Assuming Escobra stays healthy for at least 5 of those 6 seasons, I'd imagine the Royals will be happy to have him at $3.6M AAV until he's 30.

[jerichoholicninja]

Say the Greinke trade didn't happen...

 

Would you be ok with the Brewers making this deal with Alcides?

[Ennder]

Since the two options are club options I would be very happy with the Brewers making this deal. It is really a no downside other than injury move and it has a lot of potential upside if he starts to develop plate discipline or power. The only issue I have at all with the deal is that the arbitration system still undervalues defense so it might have been cheaper to go year to year just because defense doesn't pay the player at that age.

[brettac1]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind at all. Any time you can get set prices for arby years is a good thing.

[Thurston Fluff]

The only issue I have at all with the deal is that the arbitration system still undervalues defense so it might have been cheaper to go year to year just because defense doesn't pay the player at that age.

 

That all depends on what the proper value of defense is.