I was just looking at the OPS that endaround posted earlier, which Hardy's was significantly higher. I'm not really big on the consistent vs streaky hitter thing (IMO its just all a huge coincidence), but do we know that Escobar is any better? He's seemed fairly streaky to me, and his career month-to-month splits jump around just as much, if not more. Impossible to be sure of this, but the point is that 1) the transition from AAA to the majors is not always seamless, and 2) a player's major league numbers are almost always going to be worse than in AAA. If Hardy's injury makes those points moot, then look at Rickie Weeks instead. Or just about every other player in the history of baseball. Last 3 combined including this, so 2007, 2008 and 2009. Which are better than what Escobar is doing in AAA. As someone else mentioned, if we could plug in a 26 year old Alcides Escobar right now, I'd be all for it. But right now, if he replaced Hardy, we'd be looking at a sub-.300 OBP, .650ish OPS player according to his MLE. That may not be much different from Hardy's current line, but Hardy has always been much better in the past, while Escobar is probably about as good as he'll get for this point in his career. I'll be shocked if Hardy doesn't match his career .264/.325/.434 by the end of the season, and I'd be equally shocked if Escobar gets anywhere near that this season. Unless we're going into rebuilding mode, you have to stick with Hardy.