Hi everyone, it's freaking December and still no moves, waiting to rip the Red Sox for overpaying Hosmer and to kill whoever gives Jay Bruce a 5 year deal and DH JD Martinez 150+, anyway while none of that happens, there's not much to talk about, before I get into topic, loved the Petit signing.
I'd like to talk about one Corey Seager, last year he had one of the great rookie years ever, had a 7.4 WAR, 136 wRC+ and good defensively with a 10.6 UZR, looking at the numbers this year while he still was one of the best players in the game, he didn't produce as much value, 5.7 WAR, 127 wRC+, but i am here to point out how this season showed improvements in his play for the future.
The first thing you should know is that he played a large chunk of the season with an elbow problem that could require surgery in the offseason, his 2nd half numbers were significantly worse.
1rst Half
298/395/502 .204 ISO 139 wRC+
2nd Half
292/348/450 .158 ISO 113 wRC+
His injury obviously was a big part of that, yhe first sign that this season had improvements was his signifcant increase in BB%, last year it was at 7.9 it went up to 10.9, some of that can be atribuuted to him dicreasing his O-Swing%, by coincidentally or not 3.1 percentage points, 32.2 to 29.1, say what you want about Walks, the biggest edge Harper has on Machado, that will earn him a lot more money than Manny in next year's FA class, is plate discipline, a lot of what makes Votto as great as he is, is Plate Discipline, and for a guy with Seager's hit tool that translates into high averages with some ppwer, a BB% over 10, goes a long way, the second one his 10 DRS and 6.7 UZR, silenced a lot of he's a long term 3B noise, after 2 full seasons of above avg defefensive production, there's virtually no doubt he is a Shortstop, but the most important improvement he had this year is this.
2016
250/308/413 .163 ISO 95 wRC+
334/391/557 .223 ISO 155 wRC+
2017
325/389/527 .201 ISO 144 wRC+
281/369/457 .176 ISO 120 wRC+
This were his splits, his first 2 full seasons, the top line is versus lefties, the bottom one versus righties, what you learn is, in 2016 he was so great against righties, that his overall production put him in the top 3 for MVP, despite being below average against lefties, this year he had a significant improvement in that area, his producrltion probably won't be sustainablr at this level considering he had a .392 BABIP against LH, but he showed that he can hit lefties and hit them well, which is a feat that a lot of good young players can't, Jake Lamb isn't a star becausr he can't hit LH, his teammate Joc is held back fot the same reason, Benintendi couldn't hit LH this year, obviously Seager is far better than all of them, but these players are examples of how split issues can hopd you back and while his rookie productioj was so great it masked them, he wouldn't be able to keep that up long term and this year was a sign he doesn't need to, so to wrap it up, better plate discipline and great production against LH are facts that prove that Corey Seager improved his play this year and is better positioned to succeed in the future now than he was a year ago.
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See Y'all later
