Last season, the Seattle Mariners were grated by the best year in the majors of their talented third baseman, Kyle Seager. After entering the big leagues in 2011, and averaging a .259/.327/.424 line for 42 home runs and 155 RBIs in 2012 and 2013, the North-Carolina native ended 2014 with 25 dingers, 96 RBIs, a 126 wRC+ and a fWAR of 5.5, all career-high statistics. An exceptional offensive production backed up with solid defensive abilities that propulsed him to the All-Star game and a $100 million contract extension.

His fantasy value also increased, since he was valued at $11 in 2014 according to FantasyPros, and appears to be now more between $15 and $16 in ESPN and Yahoo 12-team leagues. This year, owners seem willing to pay more for him, but is it reasonable, considering that Seager may have already reached his peak?

If some still doubted after 2013, there is no more argument possible about whether Seager is one of the best third baseman in the MLB or not. According to Fangraphs stats, between 2012 (his first full season in the majors) and 2014, he was the sixth best player at his position in terms of fWAR.

Name PA HR R RBI SB wRC+ WAR Miguel Cabrera 2034 113 313 385 8 168 19.8 Adrian Beltre 1958 85 262 271 3 139 17.3 Josh Donaldson 1657 62 216 224 17 129 15.6 David Wright 1748 47 208 214 40 132 15.4 Chase Headley 1830 57 209 214 32 123 15.2 Kyle Seager 2000 67 212 251 29 116 12.8

Now you could easily object to these numbers by saying that Headley, Wright, Donaldson and Beltre all have accumulated higher WARs whilst not having as many plate appearances. You would be right, but Seager had his best season last year. Headley, Wright and Beltre peaked in 2012; Cabrera and Donaldson in 2013. So, the question now is: "Did Kyle Seager reach his peak in 2014?"

Stability

One of the best ways to start looking into a player's future to determine if he might regress or improve in the next seasons is his stability. On this point, it will be hard to do better than Seager's first three full seasons.

Season G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% BABIP AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR 2011 53 201 3 22 13 3 6.50% 17.90% 0.303 0.258 0.312 0.379 96 0.7 2012 155 651 20 62 86 13 7.10% 16.90% 0.286 0.259 0.316 0.423 108 3.6 2013 160 695 22 79 69 9 9.80% 17.60% 0.29 0.26 0.338 0.426 115 3.7 2014 159 654 25 71 96 7 8.00% 18.00% 0.296 0.268 0.334 0.454 126 5.5

Thanks to an almost-blank injury record, Seager managed to play at least 155 games during the last three years. During these years, he posted almost identical BABIP, Batting Average, OBP and Slugging Percentage. If I say "almost", it is only because Seager managed to improve each of these stats, except for the on-base percentage, since 2012. Even better, in 2014 he put up numbers extremely close to his projections, as Brad Johnson stated on Fangraphs.

Now, let's take a look at his monthly career splits.

Split R H HR RBI SB April/March 29 70 21 33 3 May 44 82 23 51 6 June 33 83 18 53 5 July 40 95 14 43 2 August 48 96 11 49 8 Sept/Oct 40 93 20 36 8 Average 39 87 18 44 5 Std Dev 7 10 5 8 3

Month by month, Kyle Seager produces, which is good for Roto and H2H leagues. It also helps to add up to his "stability" credential. With the tables presented above, is there a reason to think that Seager peaked in 2014? Or maybe he can reach a whole new level in 2015 and remember everyone why he is going to earn a hundred million dollars over the next seven years.

Power on the rise?

As I said earlier, Kyle Seager had a career-high 25 home runs in 2014, third-highest among 3Bs and 21st overall, tied with Andrew McCutchen, Miguel Cabrera, Brandon Moss, Matt Kemp and Marlon Byrd. In terms of power, Seager also had season-best slugging percentage and isolated power with .454 and .186 respectively. Yet, does it really mean that he gained the ability to hit more homers? Not really. If we look at his average fly ball + home runs distance for each season since 2011, thanks to Baseballheatmaps leaderboards, there is no real indication to prove this point.

Year Rank Hits Average Distance 2011 203 54 273.59 2012 178 154 277.58 2013 153 136 279.99 2014 186 130 274.04

In fact, Kyle Seager had his worst average distance in 2014, if we consider only full seasons. Also, he is not ranked very well among major league hitters at all. It is a bit confusing, especially since he managed to hit more home runs every year.

Furthermore, his home run per fly ball ratio improved to 12.9% in 2014 compared to 9.9% and 9.8% during the two previous seasons, only because he hit slightly more home runs while he averaged a career-low 41.1% fly balls among batted balls (2013: 45%).

So, if you are planning on owning Seager om your teams in 2015, do not draft him based on his power potential. He might hit more home runs, but it is also very likely that he does not hit as much as he did before.

A little too much predictable?

If there is one thing you cannot reproach Kyle Seager for, it is his past predictability. We've seen it, he is consistent and predictable, which is good for your fantasy predictions and rankings. But, it could also be good for his opponents.

On the left, you can see Seager's hit spray chart in 2014, compared to 2012 and 2013. In case you missed it, Seager hits are not as spread as they used to be. In fact, you might argue that his tendency to hit most of his balls towards the right field became worse. So, and as Brad Johnson also pointed out, opposing teams might very well start shifting their defenses to the right when he is on the plate, if it's not already the case. Add this to his kind of lucky home run high in 2014 and you might start to become worried about Seager for the season to come.

Now let's push the matter a bit further, maybe too far, we'll see. Kyle Seager is a fastball hitter, there is no doubt about that. Using the weighted pitch values from Fangraphs, here's how he did against heaters and the top three types of pitches he faced in 2014 (Slider, Curveball and Changeup):

Season wFB wSL wCB wCH 2011 0.5 -0.7 -0.6 -2.1 2012 6.3 -5.8 3 -0.3 2013 15 4.4 -3.1 -2.3 2014 19.6 -1.6 -0.8 0.3

For reference, the numbers indicates the numbers of runs above average for each type of pitch.

If I were really unreasonable, I would say that Seager does not know how to hit any non-heater pitch properly. But that would be slightly too extreme. The bad thing is that pitch values are not great to predict the future, according to the Fangraphs glossary. Yet, if we take a look at the percentage of each pitch type Seager had to handle in 2014, it is not very promising for the near-future.

Season FB% SL% CB% CH% 2011 60.2% (91.5) 10.4% (83.4) 9.3% (77.4) 9.3% (83.2) 2012 59.7% (91.8) 12.4% (83.0) 10.5% (77.1) 9.8% (83.1) 2013 56.0% (91.8) 14.1% (83.1) 12.0% (77.4) 10.5% (83.2) 2014 51.8% (91.7) 13.7% (82.6) 12.2% (76.9) 13.7% (83.2)

I understand that trying to analyze the two tables above and making a prediction for 2015 is more "crystal-bally" than anything else, yet there is reason to think that pitchers figured Seager out, since he faced a fastball only 51.8% of the time compared to 56% and 59.7% in 2013 and 2012.

What does that tell us? Well I think that considering his average home run + fly ball distance, his increasing tendency to hit to the right field more than anywhere else, and his reaction to non-fastballs, might be indicators to a potential regression in the upcoming season. And in case you're a little bit doubtful about these numbers, here are his isolated power heat maps against fastballs (left) and non-fastballs (curveball, changeup and slider).

Overall, Kyle Seager was a very good, if not excellent, third baseman last year and he will probably be one of the very best in 2015 too. However, according to current auction values, he is worth 40% more than last year, or five more dollars if you prefer. Many of you might think that spending a little more on him this year is perfectly understandable, and it is actually. Yet, I think it is not worth it. There is no clear indication that Seager will achieve better numbers in 2015.

For what it's worth, I believe that he will finish this year with a performance really close to his 2013 or 2012 numbers. And you could find a 2013 Kyle Seager at a lesser price, say Manny Machado or Nolan Arenado for instance.