Phillies 2019 season preview: Shortstop Jean Segura
Jean Segura has been a steady force since 2016, and played the best defense of his career in 2019. Can he maintain this for the Phillies?
The Phillies acquired Jean Segura, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos from the Mariners in exchange for J.P. Crawford and Carlos Santana this past December.
In my opinion, this acquisition was the best/most important one that the Phillies made this offseason.
This trade set the wheels in motion for the rest of the offseason, making a statement that the Phillies were finished waiting for potential players to develop into stars. They wanted stars now, and saw an open window for sustainable success, with Aaron Nola and Rhys Hoskins to lead the way. Finding a player that added consistency to the lineup and the infield was crucial.
Last season, Segura led the Mariners in hits, runs, and batting average, hitting above .300 for the third straight year (.304), and stealing 20 bases or more for the sixth straight year.
In his second All-Star season, Segura improved his defense, increasing his worth in runs by 15 from 2017, which was good for third-best among shortstops in the league. While errors were still a problem for him in 2018, he finished with the 10th highest defensive-WAR among his position (1.5).
After the Phillies’ defense last season came up as one of the worst in baseball history, I think Segura’s efforts will be extremely appreciated.
I, however, am more focused on his bat. The Phillies ranked dead last in Wins Above Average at shortstop (and won 80 games), while the Mariners ranked sixth and won 89 games.
In 2018, Segura would have led the Phillies in runs (tie), hits, BA, and stolen bases, and have the second-least strikeouts (69) among hitters with 175+ plate appearances (Maikel Franco, 62). His hitting is a stabilizer to the ebb and flow of the streaky Phillies hitters.
Segura’s Role in 2019
One world has been thrown around all over sports media about Segura and his role to the Phillies: stability. I mentioned in my take on Cesar Hernandez about how Segura will impact Hernandez specifically, only striking out 10.9% of the time last year. Gabe Kapler will definitely use this to his advantage, due to the Phillies striking out the third-most in the league in 2018.
Segura does get on base a lot for a guy who walks about 30 times a season. Kapler will need to work with him to get that number up, but that’s Kapler’s M.O. He brought the Phillies up 88 walks from 2017 to 2018, going from 11th to 3rd in the NL.
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Segura is one of those hitters that pisses off opposing teams. All he does is hit, and it’s not always pretty. MLB StatCast uses hit probability, exit velocity, and launch angle to determine the success rate of certain batted balls becoming hits, and uses this to compute a player’s expected batting average (xBA). Segura hit .304 in 2018, but his xBA was only .272, based off the quality of his contact.
Segura is one of those guys who makes contact and the ball just finds a hole or an open patch of grass to drop. I hated pitching to guys like that. He doesn’t whiff either; less than 13% of the time, while the league average is 24%.
As for in the field, I think Segura’s veteran presence paired with Cesar up the middle will be huge for the whole infield. Having a revolving door at shortstop was a huge problem for the continuity of the defense, so getting a 130+ games player in Segura will do wonders for everyone.
As long as he can cut down the errors, I think this year’s defense will be a large improvement over last year.
Predictions for Segura in 2019
Full disclosure – Segura is my dark horse MVP candidate in the NL. I think he’s going to have a monster year, similar to 2016 with the Diamondbacks.
If the potential lineups ring any truth, he will be smack in the middle of two MVPs (Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper). He’ll have the opportunity to knock in a bunch of runs, with McCutchen’s career OBP near .380 and Cesar turning over the lineup with an OBP of .367 the past three years.
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Segura will also get a lot of great pitches to hit, because no one would rather pitch to Harper than Segura. I see his power numbers getting a boost this year, too. When he does get on, with the big bats of Harper and Hoskins behind him, he’s going to score a lot of runs, while also swiping 20-30 bags to put himself in better scoring position.
In terms of stats, here’s how I see Segura’s 2019 going: .325 batting average, .380 OBP, 60 walks, 25 stolen bases, 25 home runs, 200 hits, five triples, and 60 strikeouts.
Segura will thrive off the success of the rest of this lineup. In 2016, his most successful season, he had Paul Goldschmidt behind him, who finished second in MVP voting to McCutchen in 2013 and Harper in 2015. Now, Segura gets to bat in a lineup with both of them.
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If Segura can become more selective with his pitches and draw more walks, he’ll force pitchers to throw him pitches he can barrel up. Although he’s a definite longshot, I think Segura has the surroundings and the ability to force himself into the MVP conversation.
Even if he doesn’t get to that point, he’ll still be an efficient hitter and a welcome addition to a hit-deprived lineup from 2018.