Believing In Kyle Seager
It’s often said that almost anything can happen in a single month of a baseball season. We can list endless examples of unexpected hot streaks from replacement-level players to illustrate that point, and as fantasy owners, we often get cajoled into trusting those small sample sizes. We all want to admit we don’t attempt to “ride the hot streak,” but we all do it. For example, I owned Brian Dozier in June for a couple weeks because I was desperate up the middle.
Luckily, it worked out, as my team was simply trying to hold it together up the middle until Jose Reyes returned from the disabled list.
When looking at the “last 30 days” split on the leaderboards, though, some hot streaks don’t appear to be out of place. Mike Trout owns the highest wOBA (.477) in all of baseball over the last 30 days. No one should be surprised by that. The second-highest wOBA (.470) in the last 30 days belongs to third baseman Kyle Seager. Considering he’s been a four-win player already this year and has a .300/.363/.496 slash line, he also shouldn’t trigger any alarms.
Hold on a moment. Kyle Seager — the same guy who was the 14th-ranked fantasy third baseman last year — suddenly doesn’t appear out of place amongst the top hitters in the league? Well, that’s significant.
The 25-year-old never had lofty expectations once he broke into the big leagues in 2011, and he appeared to be nothing but a fringe starter after compiling a mere .306 wOBA at third base in his rookie season. He surprised some folks by becoming a useful fantasy option last year when he hit 20 home runs and stole 13 bases. Still, his overall power profile going forward wasn’t inspiring and his batting average still hovered around .260. As mentioned earlier, he was only the 14th-ranked third baseman. That’s hardly anything about which we should get excited.
Of course, he’s now exploded onto the baseball scene as one of the better third basemen in the league. He is the 5th-ranked third baseman in ESPN leagues — ahead of guys like Evan Longoria, Manny Machado, Ryan Zimmerman and Pablo Sandoval. That’s even higher than some of the breakout guys, too, such as Matt Carpenter, Josh Donaldson and Pedro Alvarez. If you drafted Seager, you’ve gotten crazy surplus value on him this year, and that is what drives the best fantasy seasons.
The most intriguing aspect of Kyle Seager’s season isn’t the fact that he’s produced so well. Instead, it’s that his underlying numbers suggest he’s experiencing legitimate, sustainable improvement.
His walk rate has increased every year in the big leagues, and his strikeout rate has decreased in concert with the improved walk rate. His ISO has steadily gained 30-40 points per season, including a jump from a .163 ISO last year to a .197 ISO this year. Those are obviously very encouraging signs that indicate an improved approach at the plate, one that has paid huge dividends for him and fantasy owners.
Again, though, it appears these trends should be sustainable for Seager. Check out his plate discipline statistics from the past two seasons:
| Year | O-Swing% | Swing% | Contact% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 30.3% | 47.9% | 82.4% | 8.3% |
| 2013 | 25.7% | 42.2% | 84.3% | 6.5% |
He has become more selective at the plate. He’s swinging at fewer pitches overall, but he’s also swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone. He’s also making more contact. Judging by the numbers presented in the above table, one would confidently expect Seager to walk more and strikeout less, which is what we’re witnessing this season. If he continues to show this type of discipline at the plate, he should continue to improve his walk-to-strikeout ratio and put himself in better counts to hit for power.
Kyle Seager is enjoying a tremendous stretch at the plate over the last 30 days. He’s been the third-best fantasy player over that stretch. Perhaps the biggest news, though, is that we’re no longer surprised he’s performing at this level. Obviously, owners shouldn’t expect him to perform at this level over the final two months of the season, but his underlying numbers suggest the improvement we’ve seen this season is legitimate and has a chance for sustainability. Owners should be confident Seager is not a flash in the pan and should produce for the stretch run in the fantasy season.
J.P. Breen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. For analysis on the Brewers and fantasy baseball, you can follow him on Twitter (@JP_Breen).
Full disclosure: I’m a Rangers fan. Here are Seager’s career numbers at Rangers Ballpark in Arlngton.
BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
.375 .409 .648 1.056 170
We hate Kyle Seager.
Does his .326 BABIP suggest regression towards something closer to a .300 BABIP or is it more a product of his selectivity and ability to make better contact?
His BABIP will come down without question. Seager is currently tied for 25th in FB%, and guys who hit that many fly-balls generally have a BABIP between .240 and .280. Kyle looks to be on the high side of that, but it’s still a big drop from .326. He’d be a good sell-high candidate in fantasy leagues.
And on a personal note, during my 2011 AL Only draft I and another guy were the only two left with a roster spot. I only had $1 left, though, so he ended up with Seager and I got Chone Figgins. I won the league anyway, but that still stings.
So certain are you!
That BABIP range is simply not true. Look at Cargo, or Carlos Gomez, or David Wright this year, to name a few. A crude linear fit of qualified hitters’ FB% and BABIPs indicates Seager’s BABIP should be around .300, but a lot more goes into BABIP than FB%.
Check this out: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/xbabip-spreadsheet/
You’ll see that Seager’s BABIP this year should be .3306 and that we should expect it to climb.
You’re talking out of your ass, jdbolick. A BABIP in that range is definitely sustainable for a young player with decent speed and a 24% line-drive rate.
Even if jdbolick is playing a tune on air calculator there, novaether you don’t quite have Kyle figured either. Seager is _not_ fast. He may not be a leadfoot, but he has below average speed. IIRC he doesn’t have SB this year, although he’s a smart if not fast baserunner. He’s never been a guy to hit for high average either. What he does is look for the first pitch he can rope to the outfield, and then nails line drives, hence the accurately high LD rate you cite: That’s Seager the Elder (there being two brothers). To me, a BABIP or around .300 sits true, having watched his ABs since he hit the bigs and followed his game before then. So yeah, some regression likely—but he may sustain that ~.200 ISO or even top it. I’ll take that, please!
What I find really interesting, and encouraging, about Kyle is how he works to sharpen what it is that he does. From the time he got to MLB, he had a very clear, clean idea at the plate and in the field, and he has simply honed _that, specific game_. He’s not really at the plate to walk, but he’s steadily cut down his swings at pitches out of the zone, and will take the by-product of that if he doesn’t get a pitch to hit; smart. He was a line drive guy in the minors, but has worked to pull a fat pitch more routinely, pushing up his HR rate; smart. In doing that, he hasn’t altered his basic swing at all, which is short, compact, and with a good swing plane to barrel the ball, not really hitting to the opposite side but still protecting the plate on pitches away. He was a 2Bman coming up, but has worked on his positioning, and reads to go from good to maybe good+ at 3B, with a fine and accurate arm. A baseball rat and very much of en even keel kind of guy as well; that’s nothing for Roto, but it does speak to the likelihood of consistency in his production. Kyle was a bit streakier last year, but that was more the result of inexperience, his approach this year has kept him in the groove for longer periods, which is nice to see. He is very aware of how he is being pitched—and adapts in real time. For instance, he had a long string early in the year where he was jumping on and nailing first-pitch fastballs because opposing staffs had fallen into a pitching pattern on him; he won that battle. Just yesterday he faced a full infield shift with a runner on third—and bunted up the 3B line for an easy-peasy single to drive in the run. The guy pays attention, and makes the other team pay a price. He’s not swinging for the fans, he’s playing for the win.
Very few guys really max out their skill set, but that is what we are seeing with Kyle Seager; not getting different, but simply getting as good as possible with the things he does well. Longoria and Machado are realistically always going to be in front of him (when healthy), but he’s passed by a lot of guys higher on the media meter and hype parade already.
Balthazar – I never said Seager is fast. I suppose I implied it when I mentioned guys like Wright and Cargo who are definitely fast, but they have BABIPs much higher than Seager. I mentioned them purely as a counter-point to the original argument.
The xBABIP calculation doesn’t explicitly take speed into account, but it uses IFH% as a proxy. Even if you assume Seager has a 0% IFH%, his xBABIP still sits at 0.318.
I understand I’m blindly following the xBABIP calculation here, but I don’t see a good enough reason to argue that Seager should deviate. I suppose an in-depth analysis of his spray charts might yield more accurate results, but I’m happy enough believing Seager’s BABIP is right about where it should be. In fact, just about everything you said about Seager’s awareness indicates a propensity to surpass the xBABIP.
So novaether, point taken. In actual fact, Kyle stole his fifth base today. It’s more about getting a good jump for him, though.
Spray charts might reveal underlying tendencies, sure, but there’s the ol’ eyeball test. Seager doesn’t really ‘spray.’ Part of the reason is he’s not really swinging to make contact, and that’s the key to me in getting a baseline assessment of his BABIP tendencies. He’s swinging to drive the ball, though not necessarily upper-cutting it for the seats. Kyle doesn’t get many infield hits or dinkers, if you watch him play this is evident. His hits are _hits_, not flares or rollers. When he’s on a hot streak, everything is lined in, but other times he’s not going to get the easy singles to keep his BABIP elevated. He’s not a ‘pure hitter’ in other words, he’s looking to square up the ball hard every time he makes contact. He’s more likely to foul away a pitch he doesn’t like than to slap a hit off it, working instead for something he can nail. (I’m saying this listening to him finish a nine pitch at bat . . . that ended in a fly ball out. That’s Seager.)
This has tended, in my experience watching Kyle Seager, to hold down his batting average a tad; the real surprise this year is that he’s hitting .300 more or less at the moment; that has to be about his ceiling. I’d love it if Kyle’s batting eye has sharpened up so much that he can, legitimately, hit .300, in which case, yes, he might be able to sustain a BABIP above .320, say. But that’s not the hitter I’ve seen over the last three years. Kyle will trade an out here or there to keep his swing grooved to drive doubles, so I’ll take the under on his BABIP until he shows he can sustain the present level. I’m not saying this to diminish him at all, I think he’s a helluv a player. It’s just that he has a very _specific_ approach, and that isn’t one that’s likely to boost BABIP. I guess that’s my point.
novaether, I would appreciate it if you stopped to check your facts before “correcting” me, as that would prevent me from wasting my time needing to correct you. None of CarGo, Gomez, or Wright have a FB% as high as Seager. And that’s with Seager’s FB% actually representing a career low while Gonzalez’s is by far his career high. Prior to this season Gonzalez was in the low to mid 30s as a primarily groundball hitter. For the record, CarGo himself is due some serious regression thanks to that discordance between FB% and BABIP as well as his severe spike in K%.
Carlos Gomez was up in Seager’s range in FB% during 2012 and 2011, as he’s experienced a substantial drop from there in 2013. Note that Gomez’s BABIPs in those seasons were .273 and .296, and that’s obviously with substantially more speed than Seager. Meanwhile David Wright hasn’t had a FB% above .40 (which Seager has done every season of his career) since 2010. He’s usually in the high .30s, has better speed than Seager, and is obviously a better overall hitter.
Before firing off your next premature response, go through the leaderboards of recent seasons to look at hitters who finished in the top 25 for FB% each year. You’ll find a smattering of blips like Josh Hamilton’s .320 in 2012 or Jhonny Peralta’s .325 in 2011, but almost all the BABIPs you see will be below .300, and most significantly so. The more fly-balls you hit, the harder it becomes to sustain a high BABIP. I thought that was fairly common knowledge, but hey, you’ve learned something today.
Balthazar – Thanks for the insight. I agree that a player who often squares up and drives the ball will be less likely to hit a bloop single or a weak grounder that he can beat out to first. Contrarily, this should also yield to a higher LD%, so we’ll see if Seager can maintain his LD rate. To the author’s original point, Seager’s improved plate discipline should mean that the pitches he actually swings at are more likely to be pitches he can square up well.
jdbolick – I hope you have a great day. It sounds like you could use one.
After starting the season with Lawrie (keeper), Mousetakas, and Gyorko, and picking up Arenado, Seager has pretty much been a godsend for my fantasy squad.
Comments like these are why I read the comments section. Information, insight, perspective, furthering the discussion. This has it all. Or wait …
Hypocrisy!
In my keeper league, another owner offered Seager for my José Fernández. I turned him down. That was the correct call, right?
Absolutely, you keep Jose Fernandez. Pitchers can be dicey, but Fernandez looks to be a stud … both now and in the future.
I would say it depends on price though, don’t know what kind of a league you play in, maybe price isn’t something you need to worry about, but between Fernandez $15 and Seager $1 I’d take Seager every time. In a mixed league I’m sure Fernandez is pretty cheap though.
Always take the young stud hitter over the young stud pitcher. Pitcher’s luck fluctuates much more wildly and they are more injury prone.
Yes. José Fernández has obvious talent and was valued as such. Kyle Seager has been a nice surprise, which means that no one thought he would have a season like this. That means he probably won’t ever have one again, although it’s possible.
I drafted Seager in the 20th round of a keeper league and I traded away Cole so I could keep this guy I’m non gay love with him dudes an absolute ball player
Kyle Seager of Dustin Pudroya? dynasy
Dustin for now. He isn’t old, hits in a good lineup, and is one of the most consistent producers in fantasy baseball. And though I could be wrong, I do believe that 2B is weaker than 3B.
Are you having a stroke?
this site is always more stat oriented than “old school scouting”, but I drafted Seager based purely on the fact that is swing is so freakin pure. He’s a line drive machine.
Agree completely, I’ve been trying to get Seager for two years, unfortunately the guy who has him also sees it.
What’s his inside the strike zone swing percentage? Looks like “swinging at fewer pitches overall” may not actually express what’s going on here, if he’s swinging at just as many pitches inside the zone and fewer outside the zone that’s a real strong sign of not just reduced levels of swinging, but an improving sense of the strike zone.
I think this may be a case where live scouting gets you a lot farther than statistical analysis, and I suspect this isn’t uncommon of young players, not sure why you would rush to label a guy moving forward as a hitter based on 2 middling, but not bad seasons. Seems like lots of guys sort of go through that kind of a development pattern. But as a Mariners fan, watching Seager those first two years I saw a guy who really looked like he was mature, learning, and improving, and who had real solid swing mechanics. Seager does a nice job of keeping his weight back and keeping his swing on plane with the ball, which means lots of line drives and limited vulnerability to off-speed pitches. Compare that to Dustin Ackley who put up really good numbers his first year and then dropped off the map, you saw a guy who lunged at pitches, rolled over on the pull side for weak ground outs, and dropped his back shoulder on the oppo side for infield popups. Assessing rookie seasons statistically you don’t really get that for either Seager or Ackley, but watching them you do.
Seager has also outperformed Ackley everywhere except UNC for what its worth.
So M, you obviously know that Seager’s swing rate in-zone has stayed constant in making that remark. So yes, he’s just quit swinging at borderline stuff, which denotes a real improvement in strike zone judgment.
And agreed on the descriptions of mechanics for Seager and Ackley both. Ackley . . . it’s strange to see a guy just disintegrate like he did. I largely see it as psychological, if perhaps a response to facing much tougher pitching and having to work for a pitch to hit for the first time in his life, rather than just use his natural talent and strike zone judgment to wait on a pitch to hit. Major league pitchers won’t give him a fat pitch, and he’s had the hardest time getting his head around that. I do see some signs of life in Ackley since he came back up. He is with some consistency hitting the other way (or up the middle) on pitches on the outside half. Ackely _never_ did this before, but he must to succeed; he’s got to take away the outside strike from the pitcher to get a pitch somewhere else he can nail. I don’t think the adjustments so far are enough to ever turn Ackley back into a star hitter of any kind, but it may be enough to salvage his career. Which is what we’re talking about now, to me . . . . Hope he’s dealt in the offseason to a team which needs a 2Bman, he’s in the rear view mirror as far as I’m concerned. Nick Franklin’s the real deal, and already the best non-pitcher on the team.
I basically gave away a $2 Seager earlier in the year as a trade throw in in my keeper league. This is too painful to read. Thought he was just a 20 .265 guy 🙁
I drafted Seager in the 14th hoping his dual eligibility would be valuable flexibility. Now I’m thinking he’s going to be a great keeper.
I was offered Bogaerts, Yelich, and two throwins for my Dunn and Seager.
No brainer?
Keeper league.
yeah, I guess so. I really like Seager, depends on the throw-ins?
will he take Dunn for either Bogaerts or Yelich? I don’t know about giving up a good player like Seager for 2 prospects along with a big time power producer like Dunn. High cost for prospects there. I’d see if he’s interested in Dunn for Yelich straight up.
Do not let Seager get in the way of you acquiring bogaerts. Seager is a fine player, but you’ll regret it
I’d take the Seager side over the Bogaerts side.
Bogaerts looks fantastic, but Yelich is very overrated in fantasy circles unless your league uses OBP.
Keeper leauge points system who do i keep Seager or Segura? Seager has 297 points right now Segura has 298. Please don’t say Segura, because he plays SS.
How many points did Seager earn last season, as that’s more his true talent level? I’d lean towards Segura because his speed should continue and I believe in his bat, although the home runs will cut in half. His HR/FB% is actually higher than Seager’s right now. Compare 2012 Seager against Segura minus six HRs.
Another left-handed hitter with a similar swing just hit another home run, Kole Calhoun.
IIf anything Calhoun has been overlooked as a prospect even more than Seager.
If you enjoy watching Seager swing, take a look at Calhoun.