As the fantasy playoffs are rapidly approaching or are already here depending on your league’s settings, any player that is red hot at the moment could be useful down the stretch. In the month of September, Bo Bichette and Aaron Judge having the two best batting averages may not surprise you, but what about New York Mets’ Eduardo Escobar having the fifth-highest batting average during that stretch? Escobar has been white hot in the month of September thus far, and given that he hit just .220 in July and .176 in August, he was likely available on your league’s waiver wire, and honestly, he still might be! Escobar is a guy that you should prioritize as a waiver wire pick up. Let’s dive into Escobar’s numbers here in the month of September, and analyze his fantasy baseball value over the final 20-ish games of the season.

 

There’s no way to put it other than the fact that Escobar has been exceptional in the month of September, and quite the pleasant surprise. In 12 games this month, he’s hitting .419 with five home runs, nine RBI, and eight runs scored. The veteran infielder is one of just nine hitters with at least five home runs so far in September, and of those nine guys with at least five homers, he’s one of seven that have hit at least .300 during that stretch, and one of four to hit .400 or better. 

When you look at all of his numbers, the logical question is how did we get here? Well, he made more contact, he made more hard contact, he stopped beating the ball into the ground, and a little luck never hurt anyone! Escobar isn’t a guy that is going to hit a ton of ground balls. Over the last three seasons, he only has two months (2019 Sept./Oct, 2020 July) where he posted a ground ball rate north of 40 percent. However, in August of this year, his 39.3 percent ground ball rate was awfully close. Now, he stunk that month, and so far in September, he has an 18.4 percent ground ball rate, which is his lowest mark in a month in his entire career by nearly four percentage points!

Escobar has enough pop (78th percentile max exit velocity in 2022) to leave the yard on a semi-regular cadence, but he can’t do it while hitting ground balls. Sure, he needs some luck in the HR/FB department, but he needs to hit line drives and fly balls to even give himself a chance.
 

Even if we simplify his entire game into four particular statistics, you can understand why he’s performing quite well of late. His Statcast metrics aren’t exactly jumping off the page with massive increases, well, other than his barrel rate.
 

Another thing that has been quite interesting when looking at Escobar’s production here in September is his prowess this month against breaking pitches. He’s been fine against fastballs, at least compared to his overall stat line in those months, but it’s at the point where pitchers need to stop throwing him breaking stuff at the moment!

 

AVG/xBA

SLG/xSLG

wOBA/xwOBA

Avg. Exit Velo

April

.385/.209

.769/.318

.556/.389

83.9 mph

May

.160/.178

.280/.315

.179/.201

83.9 mph

June

.167/.228

.333/.315

.192/.235

87.4 mph

July

.158/.165

.263/.217

.179/.167

84.7 mph

August

.111/.236

.111/.342

.098/.249

85.5 mph

September

.500/.441

1.700/1.393

.915/.758

98.2 mph

Courtesy of FanGraphs

If he’s going to continue to hit everything in sight, he’s going to continue to be useful down the stretch, and be a valuable piece of your fantasy baseball championship pursuit. While he does have some tough series down the stretch, notably against Atlanta and Milwaukee, he should feast on the pitching of Pittsburgh, Oakland, Washington, and maybe Miami, depending on matchups.

While Escobar may not continue his near-Herculean pace that he’s currently on that has amidst the likes of Toronto’s Bo Bichette and the cross-town star Aaron Judge, he’s producing enough right now to likely be a quality upgrade at any of the positions he carries eligibility for in fantasy baseball.

 

Statistical Credits:

Fangraphs.com

Baseballsavant.mlb.com

 

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