Dodgers’ Seager Rounding into ROY Form

The Dodgers’ hyped young shortstop got off to a slow start, but has started to show why he was baseball’s top prospect

22-year old Corey Seager is supposed to be the best of a bright, young batch of prospects for the Dodgers. He set the bar really high for himself after his performance in September of 2015, and more of the same was expected in 2016 as he took over starting shortstop duties.

He got off to a nice start for the first week or so, but slowly tapered off in the month of April. His slash line bottomed out at a lean .226/.258/.339 on April 21^st against the Braves. That’s good for a less than stellar .596 OPS.

A little bit of a learning curve was expected, and you’d be crazy to think it would be all smooth sailing in his rookie year. For someone expected to compete for the Rookie of the Year award, another rookie Dodger, Kenta Maeda, had overshadowed him.

A quick stop at Coors Field after the series in Atlanta may have revived Corey’s bat. Corey has played just like the Dodgers and fans expected him to since his OPS hit its lowest point of the season.

Entering Sunday’s game, his slash line sits at a solid .283/.342/.457, with an OPS up around .200 points to .799. In that stretch since Atlanta, he’s hit a beautiful .329/.407/.553 with 3 home runs and 11 RBI.

How has he done it you ask? Basically, he’s just hitting the ball really hard.

In the last few weeks, his hard contact percentage has been 50.9 percent, up from 23.6 percent in the first few weeks of the season. When the ball isn’t screaming off the bat, he’s still making decent contact, with another 40.7 percent of balls hit with medium contact.

If you’re keeping score at home, that doesn’t leave much room for soft contact.

Punishing baseballs has definitely made a difference, but he hasn’t needed to hit it to find himself on base lately. Corey must’ve changed into his walking shoes, because his walk percentage is up as well.

He’s been walking 11.6 percent of the time, up from 4.5 percent during his cold stretch. Getting deeper into counts has also led to an increase in strikeouts, but the hard contact has helped balance out the fact that he’s been putting fewer balls in play.

After coming into the season with some astronomical expectations, the Dodgers’ young shortstop has been impressive to say the least. It’s still way too early in the season to say, but Seager has gotten right back into the thick of the Rookie of the Year conversation, joining the Rockies’ Trevor Story, Kenta Maeda, and the Cardinal’s Aledmys Diaz.

Next: The Case For Trayce Thompson

I don’t get a vote, so it ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think, but my point still stands. Corey Seager has been just what the doctor ordered after the Dodgers’ lack of offense from shortstop last year, and he’s made good on the immense hype so far.