Play 6.  A high pop behind shortstop.

Seager backpedals from wire-to-wire, almost cheekily, drifting left with ease and taking over the skyball with initiative.

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Play 7.  Another very high popup on the infield, shallower.  See previous.  The body language is almost overconfident.

You wonder why we talk about dirt-dog mentality sometimes... the idea is that a ballplayer enjoys being in the middle of the action, enjoys baseball, let's play two.  I hope they hit more balls to me next game.  Y'know.

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=== With Grades Like These, At Least You Know He Ain't Cheating, Dept. ===

Here are the 2010 Fans' Scouting Reports on qualified shorstops.  They're not on the 20-80 ML scouting scale; they're on some kind of 0-100 scale, apparently.

Comparing Seager to that SS pool ... the one that includes Ryan, Drew, Andrus, Scutaro, Punto etc. ... Dr. D would grade Seager, on that FSR scale, thusly:

• 60 - Instincts
• 50 - First step
• 50 - Speed
• 60 - Hands
• 20 - Release (includes footwork.  Improvable with practice)
• 40 - Arm strength
• 50 - Accuracy (throws sail, but on the other hand he doesn't airmail them)
• 40 - Overall (improvable)

Dr. D had assumed that Seager just does not possess the physical tools to pull this off -- here be freakazoids, the ML shortstop community -- but he was wrong.

Give Kyle Seager a good winter to iron out his footwork, and to raise his elbow when going into the hole, and he can play shortstop as well as Marco Scutaro can play it.

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