Seager becomes a legend of the fall in Texas

The 2-time World Series MVP savors the Rangers' first-ever championship

It was Nov. 29, 2021, and USC officials were floating on their self-propelled air. Not only had they just hired Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley to repair their football program, but they had kept the whole project a secret for more than two months.

They arranged a TV-friendly press conference at the top of the L.A. Coliseum, and framed Riley’s first words against the skyline of the city and the mountains beyond, on what is known as a “Chamber of Commerce” weather day. Great players would follow Riley. Championships would inevitably follow them. The whole beatific scene took Trojan fans to the place they love most: 1978.

As reporters waited for Riley to arrive and begin the celebration of future achievements, a buzz went through their cellphones. Corey Seager, the Dodgers’ shortstop and former Rookie of the Year, World Series MVP and first-round draft choice, was poised to sign with the Texas Rangers for $325 million over 10 years.

Well, that certainly was a nice No. 2 story, but it wasn’t going to bring anybody down from this cloud. The main reaction was, “Gee, that’s a lot of money for Corey Seager.” 

The Dodgers already had traded for shortstop Trea Turner, in part because they knew this could happen. Seager’s departure didn’t promise to move any mountains. The Dodgers would still be the Dodgers and the Rangers, who were born as the second version of the Washington Senators in 1961 and never had won a World Series, would still be the Rangers.

Now the Dodgers are still the Dodgers in the sense that they fall in October, like leaves in the East. The Rangers, now that they’ve won the championship in five games over Arizona, are obviously no longer the old Rangers, but they’re likely to be a real thing for a while.

Through it all, Seager is still Seager. He won his second World Series MVP award. Only Reggie Jackson, among position players, has done that, and Seager and Jackson at this point have played 77 postseason games and driven in 48 runs. Seager has 18 home runs and Jackson had 17.

Of course there’s an apples-and-oranges aspect to this, because Jackson didn’t have the benefit of Division Series or Wild-Card Series or games against teams that had a negative run differential, as Arizona did. But when you have two Octobers like this, you can reasonably expect to have another, or several others.

The Dodgers could have matched Texas’ offer but it probably wouldn’t have been enough.  Besides, they had given Mookie Betts a 12-year, $365 million deal. A couple of months after Seager left, they signed Freddie Freeman, 32 at the time, for six years and $162 million. Betts and Freeman were silent as the Dodgers suffered a 3-game sweep at the hands of Arizona, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have a hot October in 2024.

Although Seager was often the Dodgers’ best player, there was always a feeling that he didn’t quite fit their baseball laboratory. He liked to swing at first pitches. He was perceived as only a temporary shortstop, which would be a bone of contention for Seager, because he’s heard that refrain since he was drafted.

The current regime did not draft him. Former farm director Logan White did, working for GM Ned Colletti. And Seager missed large parts of two seasons with injury, and the Dodgers could write off his 2020 heroics because, after all, it came at the end of a 60-game hors d’oeuvre.

Now, through the other end of the binoculars, we see the truth. Seager should have been a cradle-to-grave Dodger.

The Dodgers wound up losing both Seager and Turner, who had no natural affinity for the West Coast. They also lost Cody Bellinger, Justin Turner and Kenley Jansen, and when they got to these playoffs without Walker Buehler and Kenley Jansen, they obviously were fighting a flood with a soup spoon.

Meanwhile, the Rangers viewed Seager for what he was, at least to everyone on the outside. They paired him with second baseman Marcus Semien and not only stabilized the middle of the field, but the top of the lineup as well. Seager was uniformly competent and sometimes brilliant defensively in the postseason, with that reverse pivot and underhand flip that began a key double play in Game 3 of the World Series. He also hit the ninth-inning, two-run, game-tying blast that preceded Adolis Garcia’s winning homer in Game 1. If the Rangers lose that one, who knows?

The analytics community has long derided the concept of “clutch hitting,” probably because it introduces the human element that they fiercely oppose. But clutch play does exist. It determines most games. It just isn’t provided by the same people all the time. But you can see patterns.

In Game 5, as Zac Gallen was stringing 1-2-3 innings for the Diamondbacks, Nathan Eovaldi was all over the place for Texas. Six Arizona baserunners found their way to scoring position. They all wound up flinging their helmets toward the dugout and taking their defensive positions, without scoring.

Eovaldi was 5-0 in this postseason. He also is remembered for the 18-inning World Series game in 2018 when, for Boston, he pitched innings 13 through 18. Yes, he gave up Max Muncy’s home run in the 18th, but his post-midnight work spared the Boston bullpen and enabled wins in Game 4 and 5, and thus a championship. On Wednesday, Eovaldi did what clutch players do. He accepted the circumstances as they were. He didn’t have command, but he kept challenging the Diamondbacks, who never took advantage. This would not have been a good time to ask manager Torey Lovullo if clutch hitting is just a figment.

In the Texas seventh, Seager managed to nudge a base hit to leftfield off the very top of his bat, a classic “nubber.” That was the first hit off Gallen, and it was blood in the water. Evan Carter doubled, Mitch Garver singled, and even though Kevin Ginkel came in to stop it at 1-0, a bridge had been crossed. The Rangers wound up winning, 5-0, and Bruce Bochy has now managed in four World Series and won them all.

That seventh inning perfectly illustrated the three-legged stool approach to team building. Seager was a free agent, the 21-year-old Carter was a draft pick, and Garver, who had thoughts of playing professional soccer when he was growing up in Albuquerque, came over in a quiet trade with Minnesota. Slowly, Rangers management constructed a lineup with no tail, a nine-man gauntlet that no pitching staff could realistically survive for nine innings. Texas led the American League in runs, homers, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging.

Seager only played 119 games and yet produced an MVP-worthy season. He led the league with 42 doubles, and drove in 96 runs with 33 homers. He also hit 327, a career high, and had his first OPS season of 1.000 or more.

Yet, just like Eovaldi, he will be known for what he does when everybody’s watching, although the ratings folks tell us almost nobody was.

It isn’t that Seager exceeds himself in the biggest games. He merely maintains himself. He has hit only .258 in his playoff career, after all, and his on-base percentage in the ALCS, vs. Houston, was only .303. But he brings a July calm to October moments. The Arizona hitters began flailing at unhittable pitchers on Wednesday, more so with every blown opportunity. Seager had 19 hits in 17 postseason games, against high-caliber pitching.

Maybe it’s the knowledge that he’s surrounded by guys who will lift him when he falls, which was also true in Los Angeles. But, more than anything, it is a quality that today’s baseball braintrusts need to identify. When they see it, they shouldn’t let it out the door.

The emotions in Texas were rampant, especially when people looked back on Nolan Ryan, Al Oliver, Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez, Pudge Rodriguez, Jeff Burroughs, Josh Hamilton and other distinguished players who had passed through the Metroplex without grabbing the ring, along with high-rolling owners like Tom Hicks and Brad Corbett.

But there was one emotion that nobody voiced: Gee, that’s a lot of money for Corey Seager.

Lincoln Riley? We’ll have to get back to you.