Dodgers: Ranking the team’s most untouchable pieces
By Sunit Bhakta
Corey Seager
Number one and two were closer than I initially believed. Seager is an example of the top prospect in baseball working out. The reigning Rookie of the Year is probably the best shortstop in baseball and is rather accomplished for a player who just turned 23 last month.
He has played in 225 games, won Rookie of the Year and Silver Slugger awards last season, and finished top-3 in MVP voting in 2016. As a rookie, he broke numerous franchise records as well. He’s also a career .307 hitter with a .886 OPS and has played in two postseasons. Pretty accomplished, huh? And I haven’t even brought up the financial incentives of keeping him.
Corey Seager will soon be the new face-of-the-franchise and was part of the trio I alluded to during the Urias section. Almost every team wanted Seager when he was a prospect, but the Dodgers just would not budge.
I mean there is a reason that Adrian Gonzalez said he could see Corey Seager in the Hall of Fame one day. That statement carries a lot of weight coming from a player of Gonzale’s stature.
Seager is already a top-10 player in baseball, not just the National League, and it should stay that way for a long time. He has the makings of a perennial MVP-candidate, as last season showed, and a future batting champion.
Combine this ability with the fact that he plays a premier position such as shortstop, where offense has been historically hard to find, and his value inflates even higher. He is a legitimate franchise player but happens to be on a team with another one who is slightly more accomplished.