MLB
5 MLB Hitters Who Need to Avoid Another Slow Start
The MLB regular season is a marathon, not a sprint. Still, these five hitters would like to perform better in April than they did last year.

Alcides Escobar, SS, Kansas City Royals

As promised, here is the second Royals player on this list, and nobody had a worse start at the plate last season than shortstop Alcides Escobar.

While he's never been known for his offense -- Escobar has a career .645 OPS and 71 wRC+ -- he was just downright dreadful last April. He posted a .214/.250/.265 triple slash in 105 plate appearances at the top of KC's order, which led to a wRC+ of just 33 for the month.

Escobar also doesn't make a lot of hard contact -- his career hard-hit rate currently stands at 20.8% -- but it dropped down to 14.3% during last season's first month of play, which was the worst among this group. His 30.9% soft-hit rate was also one of the worst, with only Dee Gordon (33.9%) beating him out for that dubious honor.

After posting career highs in OPS (.694) and wRC+ (97) in 2014, he's followed with two consecutive subpar offensive campaigns. Entering a contract year in 2017, it'll be important to show some kind of aptitude with the bat prior to hitting the open market.

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