Mariners: Is Jean Segura’s Breakout 2016 Sustainable?

Line Drives

My daddy always told me to keep my swing level in Little League. If I could actually see the ball I was trying to hit (and if I wasn’t a spazz), it might have raised my batting average several hundred points. What my father was getting at was a level swing produces more line drives than an uppercut swing. Some hitters can absolutely uppercut a ball into the upper deck (see Bonds, Barry), but not Jean Segura.

For Segura to carry his 41 doubles he hit in the National League last year to the Land of the DH, he’ll have to sustain his Line Drive Rate (LD%). Between 2015 and 2016 with the Brewers, Segura’s LD% jumped 2.4%, from 16.7% to 19.1%. His Hard Hit Percentage (Hard%) leapt 10%, from 19.7% to 29.7%.

The best explanation I’ve seen for Segura’s sudden ability to square up the ball so far is Joe Clarkin’s excellent piece on Segura’s adjustments in hand position at the plate. Clarkin compared Segura’s stance and approach in 2015 with 2016, and the video clearly shows Segura getting the barrel of the bat to the ball much faster because of his lowered hands last season. He was squaring pitches up last season he would have made weak contact with in 2015 because of his new approach.

Now that he’s figured out how to create more hard contact and line drives, I would imagine he’ll try the same approach in Seattle until American League pitchers figure a way to get him out. They couldn’t do it in the National League.