EDWIN ENCARNACION

This is a rare spot of disagreement between expert M's denizens so lemme jump in too, spikes sharpened and crusted with dry mud.  Dr. D is well aware that he also is targeted for $20M trade termination.  All's he's sayin' is that he's hopin' circumstances converge to hold up the trade until (at least) July.

Ron Shandler (Baseball HQ) writes the best post-Jamesian player handbook, available for $10 digital download, and he sez (in essence, not literal quotation):

• Slow start & finish to year disguised another great season
• Power trend, and expected Hit trend, lookin' real good going into age 36 season
• Several things SUGGEST a GENTLE decline from here:  age (trite - Dr. D) K trend, K:BB trend
• If decline is worse than we expect:  then disaster season results in missing 30 HR, 100 RBI

Let me read that last sentence again, wouldja.  That isn't something you'd say about Boomstick?!

They project him for .260/.350/.500 with 31 HR and 101 RBI for this season, a $21 value in $260 roto.  ZIPS has the lowest projection I've seen, at 118 OPS+.  Sounds pretty Oaklandish to moi.

.....

The main reason I respect Shandler & crew is that they do it James' classical way, if not even in a more focused interpretation:  

1. they isolate to component skills  (e.g. K:BB not ERA and, dear saber friend, also not SEIRA or WAR)
2. they THEN survey these skill nuclei to years-long tendencies, trendlines
3. they have done it 1000's upon 1000's of times and so have their intuition developed therein

Edwin Encarnacion is a great, great hitter -- lifetime EYE of a screamin' 0.65 and lifetime flyball ratio well above average, making HR's impossible to avoid.  Granted, that EYE dipped to 0.48 last season, counting the bookend slump months -- which compared decently to Mitch Haniger's 0.47 in 2018.

.

WHY NOT STICK WITH BOOM, Dept.

#1.  Prob'ly they're going to trade EE.  Dr. D isn't predicting otherwise.  He's merely hoping otherwise.

#2.  This "reimagination" smells to me partly like kicking the can down the road two years (Paxton for Sheffield) ... but also partly like opening a window in a dank clubhouse cellar.  We strongly suspect that the 2018 M's had early arrived at a bad place psychologically, in part because they played way over their heads and then got gutkicked anyway.

.

I'LL TAKE 'IM, Dept.

His most-similar batters, lifetime are Frank Howard - Gil Hodges - Willie Stargell - Jack Clark - Mark Teixeira - Ndamukong Suh one through five.  Hey amigos, what would you say to getting a time-capsule Frank Howard in here for a 1-year rental waitng on JRod and JKel?  Well, Suh... that may just be a bad picture up top.

One through five.  You gotta be a legendary name to be anywhere near EE's 1000 R, 1200 RBIclass.

(Amusing side note:  at age 26, EE's number one comparable was one Kyle Seager.)

You bet.  Encarnacion is old.  It is precisely as a ONE-year rental that the Mainframe has interest.  As Kikuchi was able to spin Dr. D 900 degrees until, dizzy, the more he looked the more he liked, so does EE accomplish that for 2019.  A lineup feels different with an MLB(TM) cleanup hitter out in the sidecar.

Or not,

Jeff