Not even the best young ballplayers can escape humility forever. For proof, look no further than the wall Corey Seager hit in his first April as a major leaguer.
But Seager must have gotten his fill of humility, because now he’s looking more like the player the Los Angeles Dodgers and everyone else expected him to be.
The Dodgers have only slightly recovered from a rough April in May, as their 11-10 record has them at just 23-23 overall for the season. A major bright side, though, has been the emergence of Seager as one of the best players in their lineup.
After a slow start, the 22-year-old has turned things around like so:
Per ultimate zone rating, Seager has also been playing quality defense at shortstop. Add that to what he’s been doing at the dish, and he rates as the Dodgers’ best position player in May.
Widen the area of focus, and you’ll also see Kyle Seager’s younger brother ranks as one of the top 10 position players in the entire National League over that span. And even though he’s just starting to get going, it’s already arguable that he’s the Senior Circuit’s top rookie.
Based on what’s in the book on Seager, this was probably inevitable. He was a .307 career hitter with an .891 OPS in the minors, and he debuted in the majors to the tune of a .337 average and .986 OPS last September. That helped earn him the top spot in all the major prospect rankings.
Seager getting back on track, however, has required him to live up to the specifics of the book on him.
Upon first glance, it doesn’t look like Seager’s approach has changed for the better. Relative to earlier, he’s recently been walking less (8.3 BB% to 7.0 BB%) and striking out more (14.7 K% to 16.3 K%). Numbers like those won’t do him any favors in the Ben Zobrist Lookalike Sweepstakes.
But there are times when first glances are about as deceiving as a Kenley Jansen cut fastball. This is one of those.
After beginning the year with a slightly wild approach, Seager has become more selective (Swing%) with his swings while cutting down on his expansion of the strike zone (O-Swing%) and making more contact (Contact%):
The more controlled approach Seager has been using recently is an accurate reflection of his true self. As Keith Law of ESPN.com wrote in February, Seager’s ability to recognize pitches and make frequent adjustments gives him an approach well beyond his years. That’s what he’s been showing off.
As for why it took him a month to get around to hitting, it could be because he was pressing in an attempt to live up to his reputation as The Next Big Thing™. Or, maybe he needed time to find his bearings against tougher competition than he faced in his first exposure to the majors. September is a time of watered-down rosters, after all.
“Corey is learning the league,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said recently, per Jack Baer of MLB.com. “I think that he’s been a little more patient and just getting good pitches to hit. With the strength that he has and the swing that he has, if he gets a strike, he’s going to do some things.”
On that note, let’s now look at an example of the things Seager has been doing when he’s gotten good pitches to hit. Delight your senses with the highlights of his first career two-homer game:
Here, the lefty swinger is illustrating the platonic ideal of power hitting: an outside pitch driven out to left and an inside pitch pulled out to right.
After Seager put on that display, even St. Louis Cardinals skipper Mike Matheny admitted he was taken aback, per Mark Saxon of ESPN.com:
This leads us to the other defining aspect of Seager’s turnaround. According to Baseball Savant, he’s gone from struggling with his exit velocity to making all sorts of loud noises when his bat finds the ball:
- First 25 games: 88.4 mph
- Next 19 games: 93.3 mph
Seager hasn’t quite been the hardest hitter in the league since he started wielding a fiery bat. He’s up there, though, and the list of names behind him includes batted-ball luminaries like Josh Donaldson, Miguel Cabrera, Manny Machado, Carlos Correa and Yoenis Cespedes.
Because no obvious mechanical adjustments stick out on video, this may simply be owed to good health. Nobody official has said as much, but it’s possible Seager wasn’t fully recovered from a left knee sprain he suffered in spring training when the season opened. Once again having a strong back leg in the box would lead to more pop.
Whatever the case, the power Seager is displaying should not be written off as a fluke.
Though he wasn’t known for his power in the minors, Seager’s 6’4″, 215-pound frame makes him bigger and stronger than most shortstops. Between that and an uppercut swing that allows him to get under the ball, it would have been a bigger surprise if he didn’t start crushing eventually.
I am (or might as well be) contractually obligated to note Seager’s trendline won’t continue upward forever. Just because he’s found his footing doesn’t mean he’s never going to slip again. There’s always another slick floor just around the corner in the baseball world.
Nonetheless, Seager’s play in recent weeks makes it that much easier to understand why many were so excited about him coming into 2016. After offering a sneak peek at his star potential in 2015, they all said it was likely just a matter of time before he realized his star potential in 2016.
They can be wrong about such things, but this time, they were right.
Stats are updated through games played on May 22 and are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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