7:26PM: The Royals will receive cash considerations from the Nats in the trade, as per The Athletic’s Maria Torres (via Twitter).
6:41PM: The Nationals are in the process of completing a deal to land minor league shortstop Alcides Escobar from the Royals, reports Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post (Twitter link). The 34-year-old Escobar has been with Kansas City’s Triple-A affiliate and is not on the 40-man roster.
Escobar is most famous for his first run with the Royals. The slick-fielding shortstop was an everyday player and frequent leadoff hitter for Kansas City’s contending clubs of the last decade. His high batting averages were sometimes enough to offset his lack of power and perennially low walk rates, but the speedster’s production tailed off as he entered his 30’s. Escobar struggled offensively each season from 2015-18 and hasn’t appeared in the majors since.
He spent the entire 2019 season with the White Sox’s Triple-A affiliate, then signed with the Yakult Swallows of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball last year. Escobar returned to the United States in 2021, signing a minors deal with his old club in May. Through 133 plate appearances with Omaha, he’s hit at a passable .274/.311/.452 clip.
That was enough to catch the attention of the Nationals, who have been shorthanded in the infield in recent days. Star shortstop Trea Turner has been dealing with a finger issue. He remains day-to-day, although it’s not clear if the Escobar acquisition suggests he could be facing a stint on the injured list. Expected backup infielder Jordy Mercer just landed on the IL himself, leading the Nats to bring up another former Royal, Humberto Arteaga, from Triple-A this afternoon.
But why? He was terrible in his “prime.” Had if not been for Ned Yost letting him continue to hold a role on a good team, he would have never even had the opportunity to show how much he sucked.
If you have no power, aren’t that great on defense, and can’t take walks (or get walked for that matter), there really isn’t a spot for you on a big league roster.
Depth.
I mean, it’s shortstop. All of those things are out the window. Smart teams will always put an emphasis on having a sound MI gloveman as a depth piece; not to mention one that won a Gold Glove. Plus he’s showing more power than ever before. Nothing to lose here for the Nats, and a bit to potentially gain.
He was a terrible defender. Literally the only thing he ever did well consistently was steal bases.. and that was several years ago.
I find it hard to believe their depth in the minor leagues isn’t better than Escobar.
It may have something to do with the Nats playing a catcher at 2nd base last night
Escobar may be about done at age 34, but for his career he was what he was, which was a fine defender with a passable bat (a clutch hitter, moreover), and worthy of a full time role for most of the full nine years he’s played. For his career Esco has an ALCS MVP award, All Star nod to his name, a gold glove, 25 million buckaroos in career earnings, two pennant rings, and one WS ring that the Royals likely wouldn’t have won w/o Esco. Sounds like a pretty good career to me!
Hey! He’s the probably the second best defensive shortstop in Royal history, it doesn’t matter if he hits like a 13 year old.
It’s not like the guy married and impregnated someone and then had his mistress berate the woman on the phone after telling her he was only with her for a green card and he thought she was too fat. He’s not some sort of scumbag
That 2015 ALCS performance more than made up for it as a Royals fan. Plus his defense fine earlier in his career and he had his moments with the bat relative to his glove. It’s easy to look at him now and say he’s not good but retrospectively, I am glad we had him. Bonus points for being a great clubhouse guy.
Turner situation must not be good…
If that was the case, Escobar wouldn’t be the solution. More likely, they’ll send him to AAA to backfill as depth.
The Turner-Mercer situation must not be good. Hey, the Mets have stashed Wilfredo Tovar at AAA for the same reason. The Diamondbacks have Chris Owings, and though he hasn’t played short in a long time, he is versatile and could be a nice around d the field type of bench player moving forward. Send some cash to Colorado. You may not even need to send a prospect.
Escobar and a dime, you still only have ten cents…
Schwarber injury looked BAD. He’s out for months.
Looked similar to Vogelbach’s injury. That would really suck for the Washington Nats. Really rooting for them to pull a 2019 season again.
He absolutely dominated the bluejays in the playoffs. Thats where i remember him
This is the huge blockbuster I have been waiting for!!! Excited to see the Nationals acquire top minor league prospect Alcides Escobar to speed up their rebuild. Wonder who the traded at the major league level to land ALCIDES ESCOBAR? Maybe Juan Soto?? BOOM!
Well, MLBTR has been reporting that an infielder named Escobar was close to being traded… so good job guys.
Escobar played solid defense in his career. He currently holds the lead among all Royals shortstops with 13.3 career dWAR so at least he will offer that to the Nationals if he still struggles to hit.
That’s not dWAR. That’s FanGraphs’ defensive adjusted rating. He had a career defensive WAR of 6.1.
It’s a depth move. No need to freak out folk.
This reminds me of when I was young and didn’t have any weed, so I’d scrape my bowl for resin
Alcides Escobar is the gross rezzy hit nobody wanted or needed. Seems fitting.
But still gets the job done in a pinch.
I’m more of a casual Royals fan. But I remember they showed a graphic and he was like top five in hits in the al over a five year period. Something like that. Anyone out there that can clarify?
Truth be told, the Royals probably don’t win the pennant in 2014 without Esky. Carrer year in the regular season and then was the series MVP in the ALCS sweep of Baltimore..
Lots of spectacular plays on defense, but also booted a lot of routine plays. His last 2 or 3 years in Kansas City he was utterly unplayable on both sides of the ball.
Sadly, he’s the 4th best SS in franchise history. SS has been an embarrassingly bad position for us for 50 years.
Top 10 in WAR:
Freddie Patek 20.5
Rey Sanchez 9.3
U.L. Washington 8.5
Alcides Escobar 8.1
Kurt Stillwell 6.9
Greg Gagne 6.5
Mike Aviles 5.6
Jay Bell 5.4 (one season)
Adalberto Mondesi. 4.6
David Howard 3.0
I had no idea Escobar was with the Royals again. If Yost was still the manager Escobar would have been the everyday shortstop once Mondesi hit the DL.