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Apologies for the weeklong hiatus on this series, I'll be attempting to get one up a day this week.
Jean Segura had a very bad 2015. I would love to think of it as an aberration in an otherwise upward trend for a young player (he turns 25 in March). But the problematic part of that framework is that in his very good 2013 season, almost all of his production came in the first half of that year before he slumped following the all-star break. In that first half of 2013 he hit .321 with 11 home runs, and in about 750 plate appearances since he's only hit 6 more homers.
There's still plenty of hope for a nice bounceback. Most of Segura's peripheral hitting stats didn't get noticeably worse in 2014 and in particular he was hurt by some bad luck on balls in play. He spent the offseason playing in the Dominican Winter League, something the Brewers asked him not to do last offseason, so there's hope that he will enter the season in a better spot.
Segura | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | K% | BB% | DEF | WAR |
2013 | 623 | .294 | .329 | .423 | 13.5 | 4.0 | 5.3 | 3.2 |
2014 | 557 | .246 | .289 | .326 | 12.6 | 5.0 | 2.4 | 0.3 |
Steamer | 517 | .263 | .306 | .372 | 12.7 | 5.1 | 2.4 | 1.6 |
ZiPS | 589 | .277 | .318 | .390 | 13.4 | 4.9 | 5.5 | 2.3 |
The ZiPS projection aligns itself more closely with the great 2013 than the not-so-great 2014. I'm optimistic about Segura this year, but not quite that optimistic. If he ends up at average (2 WAR) on the year, I think I would be happy, so I'll take the Under.