Corey Seager’s Powerful Weekend
Last year’s brilliant rookie class was exciting for many reasons, one of which was that it brought the arrival of an infusion of talent to the shortstop position in Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, and Addison Russell. Remarkably, we were assured that even more young shortstops are on the way – an assurance reinforced by Corey Seager’s strong debut last September and his near unanimous presence atop top-100 prospect lists this past winter. But, at the start of the season, it was less-heralded rookie shortstops Aledmys Diaz and Trevor Story catching all the headlines. Where was Corey Seager?
While Story spent the month of April hitting 10 home runs and Diaz spent it batting .423, Seager posted an unremarkable 92 wRC+ through 106 plate appearances. He put up decent enough plate-discipline numbers — a 8.5% walk rate and 14.2 strikeout rate — but a low BABIP (.275) and low ISO (.146) kept him from producing at the level expected of the sport’s top prospect, whether those expectations were fair or not.
Ever since the end of April, however, Seager has been quietly reestablishing his place among the league’s best players. Well, he was going about it quietly, until this weekend. On the off chance anyone had forgotten about Seager or prematurely written him off as over-hyped, he reminded the baseball world Friday night that he’s exceedingly worthy of our time and attention when he did this to Braves pitcher Julio Teheran:
Then this:
And then, for good measure, he did this to Braves reliever Hunter Cervenka:
Barely a month past his 22nd birthday, Seager became the youngest player to hit three homers in a game since a 21-year-old Boog Powell accomplished the feat in 1963 and the sixth-youngest overall since 1913. Vin Scully announced the following night that Seager was the first rookie shortstop in major-league history with a three-home-run game. Unfortunately for the Braves, Seager wasn’t done. He followed up his Friday night offensive outburst with an equally impressive 3-for-5 game on Sunday during which he homered twice more.
However, as I mentioned above, this weekend didn’t mark Seager’s sudden return to relevance. As the shine has begun to wear off the impressive debuts by Diaz and Story, Seager has been steadily climbing back up towards the level of production expected of him. On the strength of this weekend, he’s now essentially caught up to the OPS of his fellow rookie shortstops:
Given the expectations heading into the season, it’s no surprise that Seager has begun to turn it around offensively. His defensive production, on the other hand, has been somewhat unexpected. As a prospect, it was often posited that Seager would have to slide to third base sooner or later due to a lack of speed necessary to hold down the shortstop position.
Despite his reputation, defensive metrics place Seager among the top fielding shortstops in the game so far this year. If you’ll forgive an obligatory small-sample-size warning, defensive metrics must be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism just two months into the season. I wanted to bring it up, though, because that defensive value has contributed to Seager’s WAR soaring beyond his shortstop compatriots. In fact, Seager has currently produced more wins than any other rookie, regardless of position — and by a wide margin, too:
| Name | WAR |
| Corey Seager | 2.7 |
| Steven Matz | 1.5 |
| Nomar Mazara | 1.4 |
| Kenta Maeda | 1.4 |
| Aledmys Diaz | 1.3 |
| Trevor Story | 1.2 |
Not only is Seager establishing himself among the top of the rookie class, he ranks third in WAR among all major-league shortstops, trailing only Manny Machado (3.3 WAR) and Xander Bogaerts (3.0). So, how has Seager gone about leaving his April mediocrity behind to become one of the league’s best shortstops? There have been two key changes in his production at the plate and they’re very much related to each other.
First, he’s seen a marked improvement in his ground-ball rate. At the start of the season, Seager struggled to keep the baseball off the ground. It didn’t matter where the pitch was located, because he was rolling over everything. Compare his April GB/P strike-zone heat map (left) to his heat map since May 1st (right).
The ground-ball rate has declined sharply, particularly up in the zone. The fact that he’s no longer driving pitches into the ground brings us to the biggest change for Seager, no matter how obvious it may be: he’s hitting for power. Here’s another side-by-side heat map comparison, but this time it’s of his ISO against pitches:
Once again, his April map is on the left and the heat map on the right shows his ISO since May 1st. The difference between the two is night and day. Back in April, Seager was still turning on pitches down the middle, but demonstrating little power anywhere else in the zone. Now, Seager is pummeling balls all over the zone and the pitches up in the zone that he had been hitting on the ground are getting hit for power.
It sounds overly simplistic to chalk up a guy turning his season around to power, but that’s really all there is to it. Since April, his walk rate has actually declined and his strikeout rate has risen. His BABIP has improved, but only slightly and that can likely be attributed to the same improved quality of contact that’s resulting his power surge.
Ultimately, the power he displayed at Dodger Stadium this past weekend is a perfect illustration of what’s gone right for Corey Seager recently. It’s that impressive power from an up-the-middle position that made Seager such a special prospect heading into the season and tapping into it now has helped him separate himself from the other rookies in the league in his quest to become one of the best shortstops in the game.
Corinne Landrey writes for FanGraphs and MLB.com's Cut4 site. Follow her on Twitter @crashlandrey.
wow!.. it’ll be interesting to see if he keeps this up over the next few weeks
What is most striking about almost all of the supposedly amazing crop of young shortstops–correa, lindor, bogaerts, diaz, and story–is that they have severely inflated babips, mediocre defense, or both, so that much of their amazingness in retrospect will probably turn out to be an illusion, a combination of luck and public ignorance of their defensive mediocrity. Seager, on the other hand, looks like the real thing, much as it pains me as a giants fan to admit this.
Believe it or not, sometimes high BABIPs indicate good hitters
After several years in the league, yes. But at this point in these guys’ careers, it almost always indicates luck. Fangraphs readers should know this.
I’m new to fangraphs, not to baseball. Inflated BABIP indicates luck for soft hitters who are dropping bloopers and beating infield singles, not for 21 Y/O SS tearing balls into the gaps and hitting 5 HR in 2 days. I watch Bogearts daily and he plays fantastic D. Made a Jeter-esqe jump throw from deep in the hole last night, try enjoying the game and recognizing a young group of studs
Speaking of which, Jeter had a .350 BABIP over his long career.
Guess he was always getting lucky ON the field too!
^Definitely due to regress soon IMO
Jeter had an extremely low IFFB rate and a huge number of hits to the opposite field. You need to learn about xBABIP.
Thanks for pointing that out, I’ll go learn about xBABIP. Also, thanks for pointing out these guys’ defensive mediocrity – Lindor sure had me fooled from the handful of games I’ve seen him!
I didn’t say Lindor was defensively mediocre. I said his offensive stats are completely misleading. I said Correa is defensively mediocre, in fact bad.
I find it odd you say we need several years of data on a given player to see a true talent babip and then quote xbabip which in its current form is what 1 or 2 years old? I haven’t paid much attention to it after the original form was found to be less predictive than babip itself to be honest.
My Lord, johnforthegiants is such a choad.
Sorry to confuse you with facts.
It’s very predictive. Just read some articles about it or for that matter test it for yourself on people who have played for many years.
The original xbabip was found to be less predictive than babip, just read some articles. This formula is new.
If you haven’t been paying attention that would explain why you and i have been arguing about this and other things. Look at podhorzer’s article yesterday and the references.
Bogaerts is a better than average defender. But his hitting stats are completely misleading.
Check out my post here about Bogaerts’ inflated BABIP. There is nothing Bogaerts’ batted ball data to suggest he should be more than average in BABIP.
Lindor – .341 BABIP over the past 2 seasons, perfectly reasonable for his speed and batted ball profile, toss up for best defensive SS along with Machado.
Bogaerts – .400 BABIP which is obviously high, but he ran a .372 over a full season last year. Even regressing to that level or slightly below he will still be one of the better hitters in the league with his improved power this year. He has also been terrific defensively this year, after being very good last year as well.
Can’t wait to watch both of these guys turn into league average players!
Let’s check back a year later, okay? And check out mike podhorzer’s article on xbabip overperformers which just appeared here. Bogaerts is #2, his xbabip is 84 points lower, that means his batting average should be at least 60 points lower.
Mike Trout has a .357 over his career so far. I guess the Angels should dump the guy before his luck disappears.
Votto runs over a .350 career BABIP, as well, in a much larger sample without the added benefit of infield hits.
There’s no need to wait. Everybody but you can already see how good these guys are. You’re out of your mind if you think Lindor and Bogaerts aren’t for real. Correa, Diaz, and Story, sure I can understand the hesitation. But, with the exception of Correa who is in an obvious funk, nobody expects anything out of Diaz and Story. These are 2 guys with very little prospect pedigree who had hot starts and have already cooled off as was expected. Nobody is predicting those 2 to be stars.
Regarding Lindor, his first 54 games this year is remarkably close to his 99 games last year. He is walking a little more, striking out a little less. His ISO is a little lower, 143 in ’16 after 161 last year. His BAPIP is almost the same. His OBP is a little higher, SLG is a little lower. His wOBA & wRC+ is almost identical as well. He’s been about as consistent from one year to the next as one can expect.
Agreed, but (see the data I gave above) he hasn’t been particularly good offensively either year other than luck.
From today’s chat:
“Hanley: There was talk that Lindor’s .161 ISO from last year would drop… and it did to about .140… his numbers are all very close to last year’s… walking slightly more, striking out slightly less. Slightly less power, but getting on base a little more… Coming up I thought he could be a better version of Vizquel offensively with a chance of an Alomar upside and so far he looks like a mix of the two. Safe to say this is who he is?
Dan Szymborski: Well, the average will come down some. But he’s a damn good player”
Ditto:
Ombudsman: Is xander bogaerts not on the same level as correa or seager?
Dan Szymborski: He is, just a very slight hair behind
He’s a good fielder, especially for his age. He’s a damn lucky hitter.
OK, johnforthegiants is as usual not saying things very well, but both of these replies are not really true. Maintaining a .340+ BABIP is just something almost nobody does over a large sample. For guys with at least 2500 PAs since 2010, only 6 are above .340, including 4 of the top 6-7 hitters in the game (also, the weirdly out of place Chris Johnson at the top of the list).
.372 “or slightly below” is just crazy pants.
Any RoS projections bare this out.
Seager has a projection of about .300 BABIP, so his April was not nearly as much of a negative outlier as his September 2015 was a positive one (.387)
Again, johnforthegiants goes way overboard, especially in how he lumps all these players (Correa, really?) together.
I don’t even want to discuss the validity of John’s posts anymore. I just wish he’d display some enjoyment of the game. I’m sure he does in his own special way, but his posts always have some element of knocking a player or team off its pedestal… instead of needlessly denigrating those other guys, just stick to your last line about Seager being great
I enjoy the game enormously. I just recognize that we need to distinguish between luck and being really good. If you just want to judge players by superficial statistics, you shouldn’t be reading fangraphs.
Correa is different, he isn’t getting lucky in terms of BABIP (xBABIP .335 this year vs. actual .342), but he’s a really bad defensive shortstop (3rd from worst in the majors in Def last year, 6th worst this year), which is practically never mentioned in discussions about him. Even when he made the key error which led to the Astros blowing the ALDS vs. the Royals last year, the general reaction was surprise that such a great player could do such a thing. He’s similar in the sense of being radically overrated–that’s why in my original post I mentioned severely inflated babips, mediocre defense, or both. This article mentioned both Correa and Lindor at the very beginning as both representing remarkable talent, so it seems to lump them together as being really overrated, although in different way.
Correa’s career BABIP is .311 and that is also his RoS projection. And his career wRC+ is 128, which makes him a really good player even if he’s a bad defensive shortstop (see Jeter, Derek). Oh, and he’s 21.
I agree that Correa is a good offensive player but he does hurt the team with his defensive play. For example so far this year he’s Off 6.6 Def -2.5 WAR 1.3 (and the Off 6.6 is real, it isn’t helped by inflated BABIP). That’s the 10th highest WAR among shortstops.
Re correa: is he not a good defensive shortstop right now? Yes
Is he overrated? No, 4.6 war in a seasons worth of games. Just raw stats do look even better, 30 homers, 22 steals at over a 75% clip all at 20-21 years of age.
Simmons, crawford, and Ahmed are the best defensive shortstops. If you meant overall then sure it’s machado and lindor, but defensively lindor is more like top 5.
Ya know, I might get my FanGraphs card taken back for this, but between how dreadful his offense has been and the fact that being on the east coast means I never see Angels games, I had completely forgotten about Simmons. I still think Lindor would be 3rd behind him and Machado defensively though.
I guess I should get my FanGraphs card taken back too. Being on the east coast, I thought Jedi was talking about J.P. Crawford as one of the three best shortstops.
Actually in Def this year it’s Crawford, Galvis, and Seager. Ahmed is #5 and Simmons is #8 (Lindor is #4). By DRS it’s Crawford, Ahmed, and Cozart (Lindor is #6).
Simmons has barely played this year.
What happened to small sample size?
Lindor’s xBABIP last year was .294 (vs. actual .348), this year it’s .301 (vs. actual .341), that means his expected average over the two years is .273 instead of actual .313. He’s actually around average in terms of xBABIP, particularly because his Hard% is very low (career 25.1%), and he’s 5th in Def among shortstops over that time (not the best). Bogaerts’ xBABIP last year was .308 instead of actual .372, that means that his expected average was .266 instead of actual .320. This year his xBABIP is .298 instead of actual .400, that means his expected average is .265 instead of actual .345. With average luck, they’d be hitting .273 and .266. That isn’t so impressive. Check out Mike Podhorzer’s article on xBABIP (and the formula for calculating it) which appeared today if you don’t understand what I’m talking about. You should check some facts before you make assertions.
This …. just isn’t true.
Corey debuted last September 4th. Since that time, he’s accumulated 4.2 WAR in 84 games. For comparison, I tabulated similar numbers for young stars during roughly the same period (from September 2015):
Mike Trout 5.5
Manny Machado 4.7
Francisco Lindor 4.7
Bryce Harper 4.6
Nolan Arenado 4.4
Xander Bogaerts 4.4
Mookie Betts 4.4
Kris Bryant 4.2
Carlos Correa 2.1
There was an article a few years back that briefly talked about Zack Greinke’s interest in evaluating MLB draft prospects. He apparently became enamored with Corey Seager and encouraged the Dodgers FO to draft him. Corey’s success reinforces my suspicion that Zack is a baseball savant.
There’s only one Baseball Savant.
Maybe it’s a family thing. His brother gets off to a slow start every season also. Not sure what them Seager boys get up to in the off-season (perhaps spoiling Boss Hogg’s schemes with skillful dirt-road driving) but evidence suggests maybe they need to spend more time in the batting cage instead.
Probably out riding with Jeff Kent.
I’m saying it right now, he’s the NL version of Mike Trout… obviously minus the early career steals.
Now this…this should be in the “bold predictions” Rotographs columns.
(Seager does look very good in his sample thus far. Comparing him to one of the 10 or so best players ever in their first 5ish years may be a tad optimistic however.)
Maybe a lefty version of Cal Ripken. I can actually see Seager sticking at shortstop and doing very well there. Same kind of athleticism as Kris Bryant.
Enjoyed the article! One minor thing that would make the upper chart more viewer-friendly: you have three lines in the graph of which two are subtly different shades of grey. Maybe switch a grey to a red or orange to help with the contrast? At any rate, nice post Corinne!