Scouting Report: Jean Segura

Scouting Report: Jean Segura

            There are so many horror stories about trading prospects for rental players at the trade deadline.  Granted they are very rare but there are just as many chances that the prospect traded may be just as good as player gotten.  The Angels are learning this lesson the hard way when they traded for Zack Greinke.  Today we look at the key piece in that trade Jean Segura.

            Jean Segura was traded from the Angels to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2012 at the deadline and was a classic case of team finding a rental player.  He was the Angels top prospect at the time and was considered blocked at his position with Erick Aybar taking SS and at the time had just signed an extension.  While his rookie year wasn’t very impressive it’s this year that has been the breakout year for him.  So without any more delays lets take a look at Jean Segura and see what the stats say.

            Jean Segura is currently batting .313 with an OBP of .349 and a SLG of .461, which is very impressive for a player in his second year.  His OPS is .861, which puts him in the 65% percentile in OPS in the league so that’s again very impressive.  When he was a prospect Segura was considered to be a 15+ HR guy so seeing numbers like this doesn’t surprise me.  One thing that stands out to me is his OBP, .349 with a BB of 4.1% a full point lower than his career total.  The thing that you have to look at is what his OBP is made of, if we subtract the .313 form the OBP we get .036.  That is the OBP that Segura has from BB’s and that means if he slumps then it takes a dive quickly.  Good for Segura that I believe he is a legit .300 hitter and it’s sustainable at least for now.  I think he can improve this but with a 36% swing rate out side the zone and a 64% in the zone with a contact rate of 85.8% overall.  What this means is he swings a little too much outside the zone and a little too little in the zone.  He has great plate coverage right now and that’s what’s keeping the BA at its current level.

            Segura has 11 HR’s on the year and at his current pace should end the season at roughly 19, with that lets take a closer look at some of his power stats.  First Segura is SLG at .461, which is 40 points higher than his career normal; this doesn’t worry me too much but lets look at the underlining numbers.  Isolated Power (ISO) is a stat that looks closer at the raw power of the player but subtracting his AVG from his SLG.  If we do this to Segura we notice that his ISO is .148, which puts him in the middle of the pack in power.  It kind of makes sense knowing that Segura swings at a lot of pitches out of the zone that he may be getting a lot of singles.  20 HR’s is nothing to shack a stick at but he also only has 12 doubles; what I see is a player that could have a lot more power if he swung less out of the zone and made the pitcher throw to him and force hitters counts.

            Segura is an above average speed and above average defense, which will grow more and more refined as he gets older and learns how to read pitchers, better.  He has 31 SB and has only been caught 6 times, with age that will get better and get caught less.

            Jean Segura is going to be a superstar in no time; all he needs is patience’s and practice.  I may have sounded negative on him in this but I can’t argue with the facts; he’s still hitting well and his speed and fielding are very good.  Segura isn’t the next Derek Jeter or anything but he could be a top 3 SS by next year.