SEAGER at the Team Level

Picture credit score: © Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports activities

Earlier this month I printed a bit introducing SEAGER—a brand new metric for evaluating swing selections that makes an attempt to reward hitters not only for spitting on the pitches they need to, but in addition for not letting pitchers sneak pitches by them in areas and counts the place they will do injury. It’s named after Corey Seager due to his mastery of this method, generally referred to by scouts as “selective aggression”.

To show the way it works, I needed to level out some tangible examples that stand out for the way in a different way they appear seen by means of the SEAGER lens in comparison with our conventional public metrics used for judging plate self-discipline, mainly O-Swing share, or chase price. The most important variations between the metrics broadly fall into two classes. The primary are gamers usually seen as free-swingers—those that chase exterior the zone greater than the league common. Whereas chase charges and stroll percentages say these gamers are undisciplined, SEAGER typically sees the eagerness to swing as the price of doing enterprise for a damage-focused, aggressive method—when it’s not reckless. The second are gamers (or groups) who’re mentioned to have a superb eye on the plate, however whose endurance is bordering on passivity that undermines their talents. These hitters are letting too many possibilities go them by.

Two groups stand out for what number of of their hitters fall into a kind of two buckets: the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres. Each rosters had been chock stuffed with a number of the finest hitters within the recreation—a few of whom have been voted All-Stars many instances over. On pure expertise alone, a fast look suggests these lineups ought to have carried out equally in 2023. On one hand you might have Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis, Jr., and many others. and on the opposite you might have Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, and many others. Each groups ought to have raked! After all, we all know that’s not fairly what occurred: the Astros held up their finish of the cut price, ending within the high 5 in runs scored whereas the Padres had been, maddeningly, at instances, nearer to common, ending with solely the Thirteenth-highest run complete.