Los Angeles Dodgers: As expected, Corey Seager is underrated

We are on a quest to make sure Corey Seager gets his fair shake as the baseball world seems to be underrating the Los Angeles Dodgers’ shortstop.

About a week ago we wrote an article about how Corey Seager is the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ forgotten superstar. In said article, we praised how good Seager really is and how the everyday MLB fan might not know that he is a legitimate franchise guy.

Everyone knows that Seager is great and undoubtedly a top-10 shortstop. There is not anyone that is refuting that. However, if you ask a non-Dodger fan to make a list of every franchise player in the league Seager probably would not make the cut.

In fact, I bet a lot of people would name Cody Bellinger or Justin Turner over Seager as franchise guys. And while both Bellinger and Turner are huge parts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seager is still the foundation for the future in Los Angeles.

As we expected, Seager got criminally underrated in MLB Network’s top-10 shortstops list. While this does not really matter, as it is just a subjective ranking that doesn’t mean anything, it shows that our sentiments are true.

The baseball world criminally underrates Corey Seager.

If you didn’t catch the order based on the highlight reel posted above, MLB Network ranks the top-10 shortstops as followed:

1. Francisco Lindor
2. Javier Baez
3. Trevor Story
4. Manny Machado
5. Andrelton Simmons
6. Carlos Correa
7. Corey Seager
8. Paul DeJong
9. Jean Segura
10. Didi Gregorius

I understand that Corey Seager missed most of last season and when doing these rankings they often go off of recent results. That is why Seager fell all the way down to the seventh spot in the list after being ranked in the top three last year and first in 2017.

Again, these lists mean nothing. I could make a list of the top-10 shortstops and it does not definitely mean that is how it should be. I respect MLB Network and the geniuses that cover the game over there, but their word is not marshall law.

But c’mon now; if you look at the numbers Corey Seager is better than most the guys in front of him.

We cannot really go off of Wins Above Replacement as Seager missed an entire year, which is probably the reason he is ranked so low. However, even if you take into account his 2018 season, Seager still has the third-best fWAR over the last three years.

Only Machado and Lindor are better and if Seager stayed at the same pace and had the same games played as Lindor and Machado (who both have 475) then he would have had a 19.4 WAR; the best of the group.

Who has the best batting average of this group over the last three years? Corey Seager. Best on-base percentage? Corey Seager. He is third in slugging and second in OPS behind Trevor Story and is first in wRC+.

He has the second-highest offensive rating behind Manny Machado (according to FanGraphs) and the second-highest defensive rating behind Francisco Lindor (also according to FanGraphs).

He and Lindor are the only shortstops on this list that have been consistently great both in the field and at the plate. I am fine with giving Lindor the top spot but how can you put Seager so low? Manny Machado was a downgrade from Seager, yet he is ahead of him on the list?

Javier Baez is the only other guy on this list to finish as an MVP finalist like Seager did in his rookie season. It took Baez three full seasons to hit that mark and he is still a strikeout machine, striking out 25.9 percent of the time in 2018.

Seager has a career strikeout rate of 19.6 percent.

I understand that health is a big part of the discussion and if Seager ranked where he rightfully belonged, which is either first or second, it would have caused a stir. However, it is still criminal how underrated the Los Angeles Dodgers’ franchise player has become.