2016 MLB Player Profile: Jean Segura

Jean Segura was dealt from the Brewers to the Diamondbacks this offseason in a five player deal. Here are the particulars.

Brewers Receive: 2B Aaron Hill, RHP Chase Anderson and SS Isan Diaz

D’backs Receive: SS Jean Segura and RHP Tyler Wagner

The onetime 40+ steal threat has fallen on hard times the past few years. Can Segura finally live up to expectations in his new home or will this be yet another disappointing season for the 25 year old shortstop (he turns 26 March 17^th)?

Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.

THE NUMBERS

*Average is per 162 games played.

BATTING AVERAGE / APPROACH

As seen above, Segura owns a .266 career batting average. Unfortunately he’s only reached that mark once in four seasons when he hit .294 in 2013. Let’s look at that season for a moment.

In 2013 Segura hit .367 in April and .345 in May. From that point forward, he was batting .354 on June 1^st by the way, he hit a mere .261.

You do remember that he’s a career .266 hitter right?

How about we do this.

Let’s look at Segura’s batting average since June 1^st, 2013. Since that point, covering 1,452 at-bats, he’s hit .254. That just stinks. Barely league average stuff.

Let’s take a deeper look (not like we really need to though).

Jean has a .301 BABIP for his career. That’s league average. The last two seasons he’s failed to reach that mark at .275 and .298. In three of his four seasons the mark has been .302 or lower (it was elevated at .326 in 2013).

Jean has never recorded a league average line drive rate. Not even close. The league average is about 20 percent. Segura has never hit that mark. Segura has never reached 19.5 percent or even 19.0 percent. In fact, his line drive rate has never even been 18.5 percent. Here are his line drive marks in his four seasons: 15.2, 18.0, 18.3 and 16.7 percent. None of that is encouraging.

One thing he does do well is beat the ball into the ground – a lot. In each of his four seasons his ground ball rate has been at least 58.7 percent. For his career the mark is 59.4 percent. He’s extremely consistent too with a mark between 58.7 and 59.0 percent the last three seasons. You really can’t get more consistent than that. Over the past three years, minimum 1,500 plate appearances, Segura has a mark of 58.9 percent in the ground ball column. That’s the third highest mark in baseball behind only Nori Aoki (61.0) and Ben Revere (59.7). Given his speed, and approach, it’s really a bit surprising that his BABIP isn’t a bit higher. All those grounders help to prop the number up, though the fact that he owns a 17.5 percent line drive rate for his career depresses that number right back down.

At least he doesn’t strike out too much. Segura has never struck out 95 times in a season and his career K-rate is 14.0 percent. That approach has led to a career 7.2 swinging strike rate, a mark he’s reached only once the last three seasons, and he’s also made contact on 85.3 percent of all the swings he’s taken in his career with a stable number between 84.2 and 86.2 percent in his four seasons.

Stable in this case is Segura. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing. 

HOME RUNS

Segura’s got a relatively long swing and really tries to use his legs to drive the ball given the relatively flat nature of his stroke.

I bet if you watched that swing you would think he was a rather solid power bat. He’s nothing even close to that. Segura hit 12 homers in 2013. He’s hit 11 home runs the last two seasons. That’s 23 homers in more than 1,800 career at-bats. He doesn’t lift the ball at all with a comically low 23.1 percent fly ball rate, and his 6.6 HR/FB ratio is also the pits.

RUNS BATTED IN

Segura has a four year best of 50 runs batted in. It’s not surprising that the number is so low. Segura has hit first or leadoff 224 times in his career. He’s hit 7^th and 8^th another 198 times. He’s either hitting at the top or the bottom of the order, and in the NL those aren’t spots that leads to a lot of RBI opportunities. He’s also always hit the same with runners on base as with the bases empty. For his career, with men in scoring position, Segura has a slash line of .263/.320/.358 leading to a .677 OPS.

RUNS SCORED

Segura doesn’t get on base. His career OBP is .301. That is pathetic. The mark hasn’t even hit .290 the past two seasons. That’s atrocious. Unless he is batting leadoff he has little chance to be a positive contributor in this category. Only once in his three full seasons has he scored more than 61 times. Things won’t change much unless his approach does. 

STOLEN BASES

In his first full season Segura stole 44 bases. That is still a career best mark three years later as Segura has swiped 20 and 25 bases each of the last two seasons. Yes, that’s correct, Segura has stolen one more base the last two seasons than he did three years ago in his first season as a full-time player. Even with the reduced running these past two seasons Segura has still swiped 20 bases in 3-straight seasons. There are only eight men in baseball who have stolen 20-bases each of the past three seasons: Joe Altuve, Elvis Andrus, Jarrod Dyson, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, Starling Marte, Ben Revere & Segura. Obviously, only three of the eight men to have stolen 20 bases each of the last three seasons are infielders (Altuve, Andrus, Segura). Only two of them – Andrus and Segura – are shortstops. Segura is an elite base stealing threat given his position. In point of fact, there are only three others, besides Andrus & Segura, that have stolen at least 15 bases each of the last three seasons while playing shortstop: Alcides Escobar, Alexi Ramirez and Jose Reyes. Obviously there are only a handful of men capable of stealing 20 bases while playing shortstop in 2016, and Segura is on that short list.

PLAYING TIME

I cannot think the D’backs added the 25 year old Segura to be a part-time player. The club already dealt away Hill to open up space up the middle, but they still have Chris Owings and Nick Ahmed returning from last season (Owings played second, Ahmed short). With three men in the mix for two spots, it sounds like the D’backs will plan on using Segura at second base and shortstop (the manager of the club, Chip Hale, said the same thing). Segura has appeared in 472 big league games and every time he’s taken the field he’s played shortstop. Hard to think he doesn’t play the overwhelming majority of games at short this season for the D’backs, but there are two young players that could pose an issue for Segura, and playing time, if he were to struggle at the dish or in the field. There’s no platoon stuff with Segura to lean on either. He’s equally bad against righties (.662 OPS) and lefties (.663 OPS) over the course of his career. 

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.

OUTLOOK

10-team Mixed: Segura has a shot to hit atop a great lineup in Arizona, but even so he’s not a lockdown starting option at shortstop in this format. As a middle infield option he’s passable, that is if you can cover the counting categories and the batting average category, and you only need steals.

12-team Mixed: Barely startable at shortstop in this format too. The speed is nice, and if you don’t want to reach or spend an early selection on one of the elite shortstops, Segura is a decent option for those of you lacking the speed quotient on your club.

15-team Mixed: We’re finally getting to a point where Segura can shine. The deeper the league, the more that his talents step forward. It’s also fair to point out that his weaknesses don’t stand out as much either when folks are starting guys like Asdrubal Cabrera or Erick Aybar up the middle.

NL-Only: Check out who is available in this format. Segura is an elite option. Seriously. He has to be a top-7 option at worst, and I personally think he’s a top-5 play at the position. When you look at the options, what other NL shortstop can be considered a near lock to steal 20 bases with all the uncertainty that Jose Reyes is dealing with?

To see where Segura ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).