Corey Seager Is Having One Of The Best Offensive Seasons EVER By A Shortstop
Shohei Ohtani being the most talented baseball player ever has kind of ruined the AL MVP race. That's not Ohtani's fault. He's once in a generation and deserves all the accolades he will receive. He will unanimously win AL MVP, as well as he should. But his overwhelming dominance has blinded some people from some other transcendent seasons that we've seen in 2023. It's a shame because Corey Seager is having a historically good season for a shortstop.
Corey Seager is underrated. I don't really know how. He's played on great teams, had clutch moments in the postseason, and made multiple All-Star teams. To the layman out there, he probably doesn't come across as flashy as some of the more popular players in the league, but he is the best shortstop in baseball. Durability has been an issue. Corey Seager has only played eighty-four games this season, which makes what he's done that much more impressive. He's missed a substantial amount of time, and yet he still leads the American League in offensive Wins Above Replacment, according to baseball reference.
Corey Seager currently has an OPS of 1.071. I went on FanGraphs and went all the way back through 1970 to see if there had been a shortstop in a single season that put up a higher OPS. The answer is no. Alex Rodriguez came close in 1996. I like A-Rod and think he deserves a spot in the Hall Of Fame, but there may have been some reasons behind his performance that year.  Seager has put himself in a perfect situation in Texas. That lineup is electric, and he's gotten pitches to hit. 
When Major League Baseball announced that they were banning the infield shift, I was somewhat indifferent about it. It's not something that I would've done. I do think that shifting is part of the strategy of the game. With that said, having watched the way that the season has played out this year, I've become more of a supporter of it. Corey Seager is a prime example of why. The guy is a naturally pure hitter who can spray the ball to all fields, yet he had 1 million hits taken away over the last several seasons because of where the infield was positioned. It's not a coincidence that his batting average has shot up the way that has. The typical response would be, "Well, get the ball in the air, and you won't have to worry about it," but baseball is a hard game. You can't do that all the time. Sometimes, the best course of action is just to rope one up the middle. Last year, an infielder would've been there to field the ball. This year, there isn't, and that's a big reason why Seager is having the transcendent year he's having.
As good as Seager and the Rangers have been this year, he's going to need to maintain his torrid pace if the Rangers want to hold off and win the American League West. They're currently in the midst of a season-long seven-game losing streak with the defending world champions and the red-hot Mariners on their tail. The best that Seager can do is play for silver regarding the AL MVP race, though there are much worse places to be. He's been incredible.