Corey Seager Is Locked In, and He’s Beautiful

When Corey Seager was sidelined in April due to a left hamstring injury, it brought up an all-too-familiar concern: that this would be another season of missed opportunities, with the shortstop’s prodigious talent going to waste. Thankfully, this time, Seager’s body cooperated. His recovery went along schedule, and he returned to the big league lineup in the middle of May.

As of this writing, it’s been about a month since Seager rejoined the Rangers. You might be wondering how he’s fared so far. I have three answers for you:

1. Lol, have you seen him play, like at all?
2. Okay, okay: Seager has a .363/.420/.656 slash line as of June 19, which translates to a 192 wRC+, and he’s already accumulated 2.2 fWAR. This is in the span of 30 or so games, mind you. Basically, Seager’s been out of this world.
3. The second answer would satisfy 99% of people out there, but if you’re reading this article, you’re probably not part of that demographic. We’re here to talk about exactly how and why Seager has been such a triumph, using the magic of words, numbers, and graphs. We’re gonna spend time appreciating the many facets of Corey Drew Seager.

Seager, as a professional hitter, doesn’t exactly fit a single archetype: He’s not a fly ball-oriented slugger like J.D. Martinez, nor is he a contact master like Luis Arraez. He’s not even someone like Juan Soto, a patient thumper. What Seager has is a triumvirate of skills that are difficult to find in a single hitter. Most hitters only possess one of them; good hitters run with, at most, two. In that sense, Seager is a unicorn, and when he’s healthy and in a groove, it’s no surprise to see him put up numbers that befit one of the top five hitters in the game.

You probably already know that Seager hits the ball incredibly hard. But tremendous bat speed can end up going to waste if the hitter tends to hack away, with little feel for which pitches he should be taking and which pitches he should be attacking. Seager, though, has a marvelous feel for the strike zone. Not in the sense that he’s capable of taking and sneering at a pitch that’s two-point-five millimeters outside the zone, but in the sense that if he sees a hittable pitch, he’s swinging, and swinging hard. It’s no stretch to say Seager does the most damage among hitters who swing at pitches inside the zone as often as he does:

The dotted lines represent the league averages for each statistic; Seager is the point in orange. There are a bunch of hitters who hit the ball harder than average, and there are a handful of players who do so while swinging at an above-average rate of strikes. But very, very few hitters attack the zone with as much authority as Seager — here, he’s ranked ninth in hard-hit rate (55.0%) and first in zone swing rate (81.9%). The only other hitter who’s in the top ten in both categories is, surprisingly, Joey Gallo. Yet unlike Gallo, Seager strikes out at a rate that’s far below the league average. We’re just a couple of paragraphs in, and it’s already clear why Seager would have been in early MVP conversations if not for his injury-related setbacks.

Technically, you can have all those aforementioned things — monstrous batted ball numbers, a high zone swing rate, and a low whiff rate — and still not be considered a great offensive force. Take Vladimir Guerrero Jr. when he’s not quite right as an example: The exit velocities, plate discipline, and contact rates are there, but the launch angles are missing. Guerrero pounces the ball… and grounds out to the shortstop. As is the case time and time again for many players, a failure to launch limits their potential.

And also, none of that applies to Seager:

This is a comparison between his launch angle distribution since returning in May to that of the league. What it tells us is that Seager might have unlocked the secret to hitting a baseball, and my sincerest hope is that he’ll record that knowledge in a book, as did Ted Williams post-retirement. Basically, Seager hits fewer choppers and pop-ups compared to the average hitter and replaces them all with line drives. At this point, I have no words. I don’t know how he pulls it off! A launch angle distribution this consistent probably isn’t going to last, but Seager really does have a knack for barreling balls regardless of whether they’re inside or outside, up or down. And when Seager is at his best, that ability kicks into overdrive.

But there’s one last piece of the puzzle left. Let’s say as a coach, you have a guy like Seager on your team, a guy who does massive damage on contact. But because he’s young, he’s not quite like Seager yet; he doesn’t have much of a solid approach, and you want to refine it. How would you accomplish this task?

There’s no one correct answer, but I think we can agree on a few things. We want to him to be proactive and on the hunt for hittable pitches given his talent; at the same time, we don’t want his aggression to spiral out of control. We need to teach him, in other words, to pick his spots. But that raises another question: What spots should he pick? A possible word of advice would be to look exclusively for certain pitch types, but this sort of selectivity seems exploitable, especially at higher levels of professional baseball. You could be more general and just say “If it’s in the zone, then swing,” but c’mon, that’s easier said than done.

So how does Seager do it? The answer is refreshingly simple: by swinging a ton in early counts, but dialing down in all other counts. In an article for FanGraphs last year, I wrote about bat speed and its importance. I looked into the numbers and found that early-count production correlated most strongly to a hitter’s wOBA on contact: There’s not much to gain from taking a pitch when the count is, say, 0–0, and the opportunity cost of letting a strike go by is much higher in early counts than in later counts. You obviously don’t want to swing at the first pitch every time just because the math says it’s a cost-beneficial move — or else you’re never going to walk! — but I do think most hitters are too passive in early counts when pitchers are more willing to offer strikes. Most hitters, that is, except Seager:

A quick note here: I’m defining 0–0, 1–0, and 0–1 as ‘early’ counts. Notice how Seager swings nearly half the time with an incomplete count but is otherwise indistinguishable from the average hitter. And then there’s this astonishing nugget:

When the pitch is a strike in one of those early counts, Seager has been swinging a whopping 80% of the time. An ordinary hitter, after attempting to emulate this approach, would probably end up swinging at a bunch of junk as well. But Seager is a master of his craft: When the pitch isn’t a strike in one of those early counts, he once again becomes indistinguishable from the average hitter.

Isn’t this amazing? You instantly understand how Seager, by playing to his strengths, is taking the league by storm. This is truly a mature approach: We tend to associate maturity with patience and, at times, passivity. On the surface, Juan Soto’s approach at the plate appears mature, whereas Seager’s approach does not. But the source of Seager’s maturity is his understanding that he’ll never become a Soto-esque hitter— and that he doesn’t need to be. He thrives by being selectively aggressive, swinging when it makes sense to do so and only when it makes sense to do so. Selective aggression doesn’t work unless the hitter is fully committed, and well, Seager is. He preys on unsuspecting pitchers hoping to steal a quick strike or two, ambushing pitches in the strike zone that leave the bat at ideal velocities and launch angles. He’s locked in, and he’s beautiful.