Danny Espinosa: 2014 Year In Review
Aug 6, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa (8) tries to field a ground ball in the eighth inning against the New York Mets at Nationals Park. The Nationals won 7-1. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
Danny Espinosa started 2014 as a utility infielder, but got the opportunity to be the everyday second baseman when Ryan Zimmerman’s thumb injury shifted Anthony Rendon to third base. He had the opportunity to take the job permanently and make himself a member of the Nationals infield for years to come.
Instead, Espinosa’s hitting woes continued to be a problem and Mike Rizzo felt compelled to go get Asdrubal Cabrera on July 31st and make him the starting second baseman, converting him from his shortstop position. Cabrera didn’t hit that much better than Espinosa did, and wasn’t doing so before he was acquired, but the Nationals were desperate to find production from the second base position.
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As has been the case for the last several years, Espinosa was a slick fielding second baseman that could not be consistently productive at the plate. Espinosa was coming off a 2013 season when he was trying to continue to recover from a rotator cuff injury that he chose not to have surgery for and a broken wrist that was misdiagnosed for six weeks. He was sent to AAA Syracuse to finish out the year. He did not play another game with the major league club after June 2nd, 2013.
Espinosa started out the season hitting well, ending April with a .288 batting average. He could not keep the hitting going over the course of the next month, and ended May with a .206 average. Things did not improve much from there. His BA at the end of the year was .219.
What’s worse, he continued to be a strike out machine. He had 364 plate appearances and 122 strikeouts, which means that one-third of his plate appearances were non-productive outs. Since he usually batted eighth in the order, he was making lots of outs right in front of the pitcher’s spot. This gave the opposing team two outs in an inning when the 8 and 9 spots came up, or ended an inning with an out and allowed the opposing team to start the next inning with the pitcher’s spot coming up and no sacrifice bunt option available.
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Espinosa has spent his four years in the majors as a switch hitter. This is not working out well for him or the team. It is clear with four years of stats to review that Danny is not a good enough switch hitter to continue down that path. His career numbers are this: he’s been hitting .213 from the left side and .271 from the right side. He has two thirds of his appearances at the plate batting left handed.
In 2010, his first year in the majors, he only played in 28 games. He actually hit a little better from the left side, but his overall batting average was only .214. In 2011 he hit .222 batting left handed and .283 batting right handed. He again made two thirds of his plate appearances from the left side.
For 2012, the numbers are similar: .234 from the left and .281 from the right. In 2012, he had the dubious honor of striking out 189 times to lead the national league in that category. However, his overall average improved to .242 and he did make a minor improvement to his batting average.
Then came 2013, when he was injured but kept playing. His overall batting average in his shortened season was .158, but the splits got flipped on their head. He hit .167 from the left side and .125 from the right side of the plate. I suspect that has much to do with his broken wrist, with which he played for six weeks.
In 2014 his switch hitting contrast became even more stark. Espinosa hit .183 from the left side of the plate and .301 from the right side of the plate.
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His splits have led to many fans on the radio call in shows asking why doesn’t the team have Espinosa hit from the right side all of the time and give up on him being a switch hitter. The standard answer is that Espinosa learning to hit right handed pitchers from the right side of the plate during the season was not the time to do it. That is a process that needs to be worked on in the off season.
Well, it is now the off season. Espinosa still has not learned to lay off the inside breaking ball when he is batting left handed, which failure contributes to a majority of his strike outs. The question is: Are the Nationals and Espinosa willing to spend the off season breaking down Espinosa’s hitting, and teaching him to hit from the right side only?
That will be a major investment and one the Nationals will only be willing to undertake if the plan is to try once again to make Espinosa the everyday second baseman. The free agent market is thin for good second basemen. Most of what will be on the market doesn’t hit all that well, don’t field as well as Espinosa and will be expensive for what they are.
What the team got from Danny Espinosa in 2014 was what they should have expected. Espinosa was the same hitter he always has been: low average, high strikeouts. He was the same good fielder he has always been. Going forward, the team will need to make a decision if that is all they want out of their second base position.