Seager has a hand load of approximately zero. He just moves the bat forward. No load, no coil, just position hands in one position, then start swing from there. That makes it extremely hard to hit home runs if you're not a very large, muscular dude (say, Frank Thomas sized), and Seager isn't.
He basically steps forward to "fake" a hand load and starts his hands at his back left shoulder. When he gets all of it he can sneak one out of the park here and there, but no, it will NOT be a regular occurance.
And if he hits 50 doubles (his 550 AB pace for this year) then nobody's really gonna care about single digit HRs. That would make him Wade Boggs, basically, who had no HR power and nobody cared a whit.
Now, he's never gonna have Boggs/Raines-level batting eye, but there are worse things than being Tim Raines Lite.
Not having to load his hands means he can catch up to most pitches without a problem. He's got a good swing plane, as you mention, and he lets the pitcher's velocity do a lot of the work, which was always Tony Gwynn's approach.
It's a simple approach. I like simple things in baseball. Seager has a good eye, a good swing, good bat speed, good time in the zone, good results againt both lefties and righties...
He's a lot of good. I don't know that he's great at anything, but I also don't know that he has to be.
I don't need him to be Boggs or Gwynn or Raines. I only need him to be the good version of Kyle Seager. That would be miles better than Figgins is right now.
And for reference:
Lonnie Chisenhall, #25 prospect for 2011, ages 19-22:
.271/.344/.451, 32 doubles, 5 triples, 19 HRs per 550 ABs, .56 batting eye. Rated the best 3B prospect not named Moustakas (though Lawrie's making a case too), just called up to the bigs after 250 AAA at-bats (1470 overall). Top hitter in the Indians system.
Kyle Seager, not rated, ages 21-23:
.321/.401/.470, 42 doubles, 3 triples, 10 HRs per 550 ABs, .78 batting eye.
Lonnie turns 10 of Seager's doubles into HRs, Kyle hits more singles, they both walk about the same. You'd think Kyle's line was skewed by High Desert...except he's hitting more doubles this year, and his average and slugging are nearly identical, even if he did hit a few more HRs in the Cal League.
IMO, he's got the same chance to turn into a 100 OPS+ hitter in the bigs that Chisenhall does, if not more. Now, I'm not a huge Chisenhall believer, so maybe that's not saying much...
But Seager's legit in my book. He'd be our 2B of the future if we didn't have a perennial All-Star blocking the way.
Sometimes a Richie Sexson can get legitimately blocked by a Jim Thome and still be a good player in his own right. A Todd Walker/Placido Polanco type at 3B would be a godsend at this point. He'd have more value for someone else at second, but for us? There's a reason 6'5 Liddi is getting reps at short in order to get Seager more comfortable at the hot corner.
3B is Kennedy's until September, IMO, but after that...Seager's trying to put his name at the top of the list going into Spring Training 2012.
~G
Add new comment
1