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In any sport, projecting a player's future performance may be an impossible task, but it is one that front offices, fans, and analysts all spend a considerable amount of effort trying to do. On the positive side, baseball, a game with a 162-game season and less moving parts as a one-on-one action, tends to be one where more credence can be placed on a player's past performance to identify what they will do in the future.
That being said, there are always outliers. While we have come to expect every star player to come into the league and show their talents immediately, there are plenty of success stories involving players who bloom later in their careers. At the same time, though, this only makes projecting more complicated; do we trust the long sample size of data, or believe in the narrative that this is a changed player? That's a question that can be impossible to answer.
It's easy to believe that a player is "who they are." Nevertheless, baseball is a very difficult game, and players are constantly making adjustments to try to improve. Whether it's physical or mental, all it can take is one minor tweak to unlock a whole new level to their skillset. After all, if every player was the exact same every year, what is the point of even playing the games?
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At the end of the day, though, it takes a special type of player to constantly be looking to improve. The more open-minded one is to making adjustments, the more likely something eventually clicks. After all, we're at a time in baseball where players have as much information available to them as they please, making it even more likely that we see breakouts where we least expect it.
Breaking through when others least expect it has become a common occurrence for Marcus Semien. After seemingly being the model of consistency, he's taken his game to the next level as of late, but it has come with a lot of turbulence as well. With massive expectations after signing a seven-year, $175 million deal with the Rangers, Semien has been on the wrong side of that turbulence currently. Can he turn it around and tread smoother? Let's take a closer look!
Marcus Semien's Unexpected Rise
From being born in San Francisco to playing high school ball in Berkeley and college ball at the University of California Berkeley, it's safe to say that Marcus Semien is the epitome of a "Bay Area kid." Quickly, though, he would have to soon get adjusted to the Windy City; he was drafted by the White Sox in the sixth round of the 2011 MLB draft.
Although Semien demonstrated quality plate skills (11.4% BB, 14.3% K) during his final year at UC Berkeley, his overall production (.786 OPS) didn't overly impress, nor did he have the type of physical projection that scouts tend to covet. Alas, he certainly went under the radar throughout the draft process, and it didn't help that he struggled in his first stint of professional baseball at low-A (92 weighted-runs-created-plus/wRC+) upon being drafted.
Quickly, though, it became clear that Semien could no longer be overlooked. Between 2012 and 2013, he vaulted up from High-A to Triple-A, posting a very strong 145 wRC+ with tremendous plate discipline (13.8% BB, 16.8% K) and burgeoning power as well. Heck, he even made his MLB debut that season, despite still being just over two years removed from college. At a time when prospects weren't pushed as quickly, that is remarkably impressive.
This led to Semien being ranked as the 91st-best prospect by Baseball America, and while he didn't earn that top-100 designation from MLB Pipeline, their report of him certainly read very positive:
"Semien has been a revelation since signing as a sixth-round pick in 2011. After totaling 10 home runs in three college seasons at California, he has gone deep 35 times in his two full pro seasons. Two of those long balls came during Semien's first big league callup last September.
Semien is more of a tablesetter than a slugger, though, and he led the Minor Leagues with 110 runs in 2013. He controls the strike zone well and repeatedly barrels balls with his compact stroke. Semien enhances his average speed with good instincts on the bases.
Drafted as a shortstop, Semien played a lot of second base last year and mostly third base while with Chicago. He profiles best as a second baseman, offensively and defensively, but he has the savvy to get the job done at shortstop. Semien has nothing left to prove in the Minors and only needs to have the White Sox clear a spot for him in their lineup."
Although many weren't optimistic about Semien's future power output, his minor-league numbers speak for themselves, especially after he added on with a 142 wRC+ and .234 isolated power (ISO) at Triple-A in 2014. Unfortunately, though, those numbers did not translate immediately to the MLB level (91 wRC+), with his contact skills (27.5% K) notably taking a step back. This wouldn't work for a White Sox team with immediate hopes of contending; they shipped Semien, along with three other players, to Oakland in a trade that sent starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija to the South Side of Chicago.
For obvious reasons, this trade meant more to Semien, per Shayna Rubin of The Mercury News:
“I was nervous, it’s the Oakland A’s,” Semien said. “Your whole childhood it’s A’s and Giants, I want to play for the A’s or Giants when I grow up. You just casually say it, and when it really happened, it made me excited but nervous at the same time.”
It's one thing to establish yourself in the big leagues. It's another thing to establish yourself in the big leagues while living out your dream. Semien certainly had some warts from a defensive standpoint, but he also seemingly couldn't take the next step offensive. In fact, his offensive consistency is remarkable:
- 2015: 97 wRC+
- 2016: 98 wRC+
- 2017: 97 wRC+
- 2018: 97 wRC+
Between Semien's wRC+ consistency and Khris Davis continuously hitting .247, there had to have been some conspiracy theory going on in Oakland, right? In all seriousness, we saw Semien flash power (.197 ISO) in 2016, but mainly, he had settled in as a .250 hitter with a .310-.320 on-base percentage, around 15 home runs, and double-digit stolen bases. Without stellar defense at shortstop, it's a profile that not all teams would covet, but the A's continued to entrust him as their starting shortstop.
In 2018, there were positive signs of a potential next level; Semien posted the lowest strikeout rate (18.6%) and swinging-strike rate (8.2%) of his career, which at least increased his potential on-base skills. Now, if he could just put the contact skills and power potential together, you'd be looking at a very strong offensive contributor. In 2019, that finally happened.
Semien Reaches Stardom (Then Loses It?)
Entering 2019, Semien had never had one season where he had a league-average wRC+, nor had he ever had a season where he was worth three wins above replacement (fWAR), per Fangraphs. In other words, while he had established himself as a quality player, there was little from what he had accomplished that screamed "superstar." Well, until he abruptly became one.
Not only did Semien manage to play in every game, but he took off with a 138 wRC+ and .285/.369/.522 slash line. Between having the lowest strikeout rate of his career (13.7%), highest walk rate of his career (11.6%), and showcasing much more power (.237 ISO), there wasn't one significant area of his offensive skillset in which he didn't thrive.
From an approach standpoint, it's hard to figure out what changed with Semien. Sure, you could say his performance against fastballs improved, but that can be said about every other pitch! At the end of the day, he simply started to hit the ball harder, make more contact, and chase out of the zone less. I'm sure every baseball player wishes it were that easy!
Suddenly, with Semien just one year away from free agency, he looked destined to receive a significantly larger contract than previously anticipated. Unfortunately, as with everything in 2020, those plans went awry. Semien regressed back down to a 91 wRC+, hitting for similar power (.152) and striking out similarly (21.2% K) to how he had previously. Really, outside of his chase rate (18.5%), there was any data point that held from that breakout 2019 season.
So, was Semien's 2019 really just a flash in the pan? Or was 2020 too small of a sample to take anything away from it? This was the very important question that made Semien one of the major mysteries entering free agency. In the end, he chose to bet on himself by taking a one-year, $18 million contract from the Blue Jays, a deal that didn't receive a lot of support from the outside. Yet, little did we know that the legend of Semien was just being created.
Semien's Absurd 2021 Season + Major Adjustments
In case you haven't heard, the Blue Jays had a pretty good offense last season, ranking third in runs scored, second in wRC+, and first in home runs. Last I checked, that's very impressive! Naturally, players such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernandez, and George Springer will naturally garner a lot of attention, but we cannot forget about the impact Semien had in Toronto.
With a 131 wRC+, .265/.334/.538 slash line, and 6.2 fWAR, Semien had roughly the same exact season he had in 2019. If you're confused about this roller-coaster of a trajectory by now, I don't blame you! At the same time, though, there were a lot of differences from 2019 that made this season very unique. In fact, personally, it's what made me come to truly appreciate him as a player.
Baseball Savant's expected statistics are a great measure to describe how a player should be performing. However, based on previous research, they are not a predictive statistic, and there are ways to consistently overperform these expected statistics.
See, expected statistics only take into account exit velocity and launch angle, but not batted-ball sprays. As I've gone over in a previous piece of Semien, there are two specific variables that are important to look at when it comes to "overachieving" your expected power numbers:
"In fact, going back to 2015, there is a slight correlation between pulling the ball and overachieving your expected numbers. There’s about a 9% gap in the coefficient of determination between pull rate and isolated power (ISO) versus pull rate and expected ISO; in other words, when you take batted-ball quality out of account, there’s still some correlation between pulling the ball and hitting for power.
However, pulling the ball isn’t the only way to overachieve your expected power numbers. Currently, Baseball Savant has six batted-ball categories: barrel, solid, flare/burner, under, topped, and weak. For more information on these contact rates, I highly recommend reading Jonathan Metzelaar’s breakdown at Pitcher List. The one I wanted to focus on, though is “under” balls.
This trajectory of contact consists completely of higher fly balls (average launch angle 45.15, per Metzelaar), and generally doesn’t do well, especially for batting average (.072 BA). However, outside of the top-two batted ball trajectories, they’re actually the only one that produces home runs (1.1 HR/Batted Ball Event)."
Pulling the ball (41.1%) and hitting the ball in the air (31.4% under) isn't something that Semien isn't familiar with doing. In 2021, though, he took it to a whole new level, posting a 47% pull rate with just a 31% ground-ball rate and 33.4% under rate. Hence, how you end up with a home-run spray chart like this:
Good things happen when you pull the ball and hit it in the air. For Semien, it led to him performing better than his expected statistics would indicate, and it makes sense; a lot of Semien's home runs came from him taking advantage of shorter distances down the left-field line, which speaks to him having a specific approach. Semien hit five home runs on "under" balls last season, second to Jose Altuve, and had just a .148 expected weighted on-base average on those batted balls.
For instance, based on the batted-ball quality (102.8 MPH, 44-degree launch angle), this was not expected to be a home run:
Yet, should a hitter be penalized for doing something that clearly translates to production? This is an approach that can work in pretty much every ballpark, and it isn't as though he wasn't hitting the ball hard (9.8% barrel, 41.4% hard-hit). This appeared to be a sustainable method of madness, and something that would translate to instant production after signing the after-mentioned massive contract with the Rangers. So far, though, that hasn't turned out to be the case.
Semien's 2022 Struggles
Just when you thought the roller-coaster ride that Semien has been on was over, it really was just getting started:
To sum it up, in 247 plate appearances, Semien has an 80 wRC+, along with a .218/.275/.347 slash line. That is certainly not what was expected from a player with top-three AL MVP finishes in his last two full seasons.
To be fair, some of this can be attributed to a very low .236 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), but when only 28.2% of your batted balls are hit 95 MPH or harder, that's to be somewhat expected. Whether it's that hard-hit rate or his 4% barrel rate, all data points illustrate the obvious- Semien is simply not hitting the ball hard. In fact, in a lot of ways, it mirrors the puzzling year that was 2020.
Why would this be concerning? Well, Semien wouldn't be the first free agent to struggle in their first season with a new team. In fact, of the recent players to sign a contract for $80 million or more, the hit rate isn't ideal:
Of the 19 players in this sample, 17 performed worse than the season prior. That's an astonishing amount, and a clear red flag for investing heavily through free agency. For perspective, that's an average decrease of 22 points on a hitter's WRC+, which is a very significant drop-off.
Generally, the downgrade in offensive performance happens all-around, but one area to specifically focus on is the hitter's plate discipline. In an effort to perhaps "live up" to the new contract, recently-signed free agents can often adopt a very aggressive approach, and that holds true for Semien. His 27.6% chase rate and 52.1% swing rate are the highest of his career, respectively, and are outliers compared to the rest of his career. This leads to making more contact on less-favorable pitches, while also getting on base less. Generally, that isn't an ideal combination.
So, all hope is lost for Semien, right? Not quite! In fact, all signs point to him finally coming out of his funk:
Need more reason to be optimistic? Well, there's this:
If plate discipline is our main concern with newly-signed free agents, the fact that Semien isn't expanding the zone as much, nor swinging-and-missing, is an obvious positive sign. Add in the power starting to show up, and there are signs to believe Semien is finally adjusting to his new team. THE BAT X projects him for a 122 wRC+ for the rest of the season, which seems rather fair. Considering how it started, I'm sure Semien and the Rangers would be happy with that result.
If there is one mild disappointment to still be had with Semien, his ground-ball rate (39.1%) has creeped back up, while his pull rate (41.4%) has gone back down. Sadly, it doesn't appear we'll be getting a repeat of his brilliant strategy from last season, shifting closer to the style of hitter he was in 2019. As we've seen, that doesn't mean he won't have a lot of success, though it will be a bit more reliant on his on-base skills, as opposed to his power.
Adding value to his profile, Semien has already stolen 10 bases this season, a trend that should continue for an aggressive Rangers team. Plus, as the offensive environment starts to pick up, he should be a notable beneficiary, especially since he's someone who hits for power in terms of hitting the ball often in the air, rather than displaying elite raw power. Patience is required, but the end result should be a player similar to what we've seen in the past.
Overview
For a player who displayed such tremendous consistency throughout the beginning of his career, it is remarkable how turbulent the past few seasons have been for Marcus Semien. That being said, he has displayed a level of stardom that previously couldn't be imagined, and is now finally coming into his own.
It's hard to live up to a new free-agent contract, especially as you have to become accustomed with a new team, new city, and new facilities. We saw this with Trevor Story in Boston, and the same can be applied for Semien. As he continues to shift back to the player that we know and love, we should see production very similar to what he has demonstrated int he past, which is very exciting to think about.
If you didn't have some concern about Semien, considering the whiff rate of recent major free-agent signings in the first year with their new team, you'd likely be overly optimistic. It's still looking like the power production he had last season was the peak for him, and he's likely to be more reliant on other areas moving forward. At the same time, for someone who plays every single game, that is still a very darn good player. After a few potholes, let's hope for a smooth ride ahead for one of the league's more fascinating players.
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