Los Angeles Dodgers: The massive impacts of getting Corey Seager back

3. An all-around elite defensive infield

This kind of depends on who the Los Angeles Dodgers play at first base but the team has the potential to have arguably the best defensive infield in baseball. If Max Muncy is tasked with first base then that elite defensive infield suddenly takes a hit.

However, if Muncy struggles his way out of the starting lineup and the Dodgers move Cody Bellinger back to first, the team will have four elite defensive players in the infield, assuming Enrique Hernandez is the everyday second baseman, which he should be.

If you use the eye test then you might think that Manny Machado is a better defensive shortstop than Corey Seager. Machado makes the flashy throws and has one of the best arms in baseball, an arm that is admittedly better than Seager’s.

That arm is often making up for Machado’s occasional lack of range and misplaying ground balls. If you look at advanced defensive metrics, it becomes apparent that Machado is a much better defensive third baseman than shortstop.

In his career at shortstop, Machado has a -4.7 UZR/150. UZR is FanGraphs’ Ultimate Zone Rating, which measures how many runs a player is above (or below) league average. Per 150 means it is averaged out to a 150-game sample size.

Meanwhile, Seager has a career 6.3 UZR/150, 11 defensive runs better than Manny Machado, which is a wide margin. This is also including last season, in which Seager was very poor (but still better than Machado’s numbers) defensively, because of his arm.

Take 2017 for example. Seager had the second-best UZR/150 among shortstops, trailing just Andrelton Simmons. He also had the joint second-best def rating, which practically measures defensive efficiency.

Corey Seager is an elite defensive shortstop, even if he does not get the credit for it that he deserves.