Arizona Diamondbacks: Team trades 3 prospects for Eduardo Escobar
The Arizona Diamondbacks filled in a utility hole in their roster and added some offense by acquiring Eduardo Escobar on Friday
The Arizona Diamondbacks have seen their lead in the National League West slip away to a surging Los Angeles Dodgers team. After losing their grip on a National League Wild Card spot as well, the Diamondbacks attempted to find more offense with Minnesota Twins infielder Eduardo Escobar.
Escobar has been in the midst of a career resurgence after being typecast as a defense-focused bench infielder for much of his first few seasons in the league. However, work on his swing and time with Twins hitting coach James Rowson that helped him in his approach at the plate has allowed Escobar to enjoy two very good seasons in 2017 and 2018.
In 2017, Escobar filled in throughout the infield for the first few months of the season until a season-ending injury to Miguel Sano in early August. As the Twins surged to the second American League Wild Card in 2017, Escobar was right there with them, finishing the year hitting .254/.309/.449 with 21 home runs.
This year, Sano’s issues at the plate along with the PED suspension to starting shortstop Jorge Polanco have meant that Escobar played nearly every day for the Twins before Friday’s trade. He’d not disappointed, either, hitting .274/.338/.514 with a league-leading 37 doubles and 15 home runs.
While Daniel Descalso has been tremendous this year when filling in, his best defensive position is batter (not that he’s a bad fielder, just that he’s not exactly an exceptional one), and with Steven Souza healthy again, the Diamondbacks could use Escobar to take over for Jake Lamb at third base until he returns, and then have one of the best and most flexible benches of any contender going, especially when you consider in Jon Jay, and the three-headed catching group of John Ryan Murphy, Jeff Mathis, and Alex Avila.
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What did the Arizona Diamondbacks give up?
The good news for Arizona Diamondbacks fans is that none of their best prospects were needed to make this deal go. Seemingly akin to the J.D. Martinez deal last summer, the Diamondbacks were able to use multiple high-ceiling pieces in the lower levels to satisfy the Twins desires.
Jhoan Duran is the gem of the deal for the Twins, with a big arm and physicality that leads to the belief that he has a future floor as a hard-throwing reliever if he can’t make it as a starter. Gabriel Maciel profiles as a 4th outfielder, but his tools are such that he could be a very good one if he hits his 90% projections. Finally, Ernie De La Trinidad is a very intriguing player that went to UNLV but is still plenty raw, though many feel like he’ll end up a second-division regular in the infield or a bench player.
Next. Three Diamondbacks trade candidates. dark
From that review it would seem that the Arizona Diamondbacks did fairly well in their trade for Eduardo Escobar, but while their trade for Martinez in 2017 did well for the team, the players traded away have had success in the Tigers system, and in a system lacking in depth, trading away that depth could hurt the Diamondbacks in the long-term.