Seager's Surge
We examine Corey Seager's impressive run to becoming NLCS MVP and then revisit the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays magical season through the eyes of a young Navy sailor.
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . Corey Seager is just the second shortstop to ever be named NLSC MVP. The other was Ozzie Smith of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1985.
. . . 2008 was not only the first season that the Tampa Bay Rays made the postseason, but also the first season that they posted a winning record. Prior to 2008, the Rays had amassed a .399 winning percentage over their first 11 years as an MLB franchise and only had finished above last place in the AL East once before (2004 when they finished 4th).
Leading Off
Corey Seager’s (Re-)Ascent To Stardom
By Jeremy Dorn
On a team full of superstars, he is nearly anonymous. A name that barely registers for fans reading through the lineup card. A quiet, fundamental player dwarfed in recognition by the guy who hits before him and personality by most who hit after.
And yet, Corey Seager is setting records and carrying the Dodgers on his back during the 2020 postseason. After a fast start as a raw, 22-year-old top prospect, injuries sent his promising career into a tailspin. Now, he’s healthy and the newly-crowned MVP of the NLCS.
Seager, who put together an MVP-caliber 2020 season (though he will likely lose to the Braves’ Freddie Freeman or his own teammate Mookie Betts), showed off even more once the calendar turned to October. He mashed his way through the NLDS against division-rival San Diego. And he set franchise and league records for home runs and RBIs in the NLCS, one of the players most responsible for the Dodgers storming back from a 3-1 deficit to advance to the World Series.
The path didn’t come easy, though baseball likely always has. Seager was drafted with the 18th overall pick in 2012 to great fanfare. He was a can’t-miss high school prospect in Charlotte, NC, whose only question mark was whether he was “too tall” to stick at shortstop when he inevitably made it to the big leagues. He had the skills, he had the demeanor, and he had the pedigree; the year he was drafted, his older brother, Kyle, was already making a name for himself in the majors with the Seattle Mariners.
Kyle Seager has been a successful, albeit inconsistent player, and the Dodgers likely would have been pleased with a replication by little brother. However, Corey Seager rose quickly, winning a Rookie of the Year award in 2016. It wasn’t long before even his sibling’s expectations grew: Kyle was wearing “Corey’s Brother” across his back for Player’s Weekend in 2017, despite being six years older, and despite Corey being in just his second full season.
It became obvious early on that Corey was the better of the two Seager’s. It was obvious to any Dodgers fan that he was destined for greatness. He was a better all-around player than his brother and soon proved to be one of the better hitters in the entire league. His mechanical approach to the game, honed over years and years of repetition, kept him on the fringes of the discussion for “best shortstop in the league,” rather than in the spotlight. He seemed to like it that way. But that manic work ethic also eventually contributed to his struggles.
After two All-Star appearances in his first two full seasons, Seager ran into major health issues. First, it was his arm. Just a month into the 2018 season, the Dodgers were dealt a huge blow when Seager injured his UCL and was ruled out for the rest of the year. Eventually, he required hip surgery, too, and then suffered hamstring problems that set him back at times in 2019.
At one point, manager Dave Roberts told the media they had to essentially beg Seager not to do his hitting drills so that he could fully rehab and stay on track for a timely return. Along the way, even while injured, teams inquired about Seager. He was lesser known to fans of the game, but front offices are savvy. They knew what the Dodgers had in Seager.
So did his team.
Despite being dangled in trade rumors at seemingly every deadline (yours truly even accepted that a swap involving Francisco Lindor would benefit the Dodgers long-term), the Dodgers bided their time. They rejected offers that would have put other good shortstops in his place and, given how long it took him to return to form, it was puzzling at times.
With a monstrous 2020 season in the rearview mirror and Seager tearing up the October stage, it’s clear that the Dodgers’ front office was right again. Fully healthy for the first time in years, Seager has re-staked his claim as one of the premier shortstops in baseball. He shares company with the likes of Lindor, Javier Baez, Carlos Correa, and Trevor Story, all of whom will potentially become free agents with Seager after the 2021 season.
On that shortlist, Seager was clearly the least desirable player just a year ago. Now, a .307/.358/.907 regular season line and red-hot October later, he might have flipped the script. His re-ascendence to stardom at age 26, a couple of years before most players enter their primes, is complete.
If Seager enjoyed being semi-anonymous before, those days might be numbered. He may very well go into free agency as the most sought-after shortstop in a historic market. Regardless, he will command (and deserve) top dollar, and it won’t be long before more than just his brother is putting Seager’s name on their backs.
That’s what happens when you are the best hitter in a stacked lineup on the playoff stage. And Dodgers fans couldn’t be happier to see their quiet, homegrown, workaholic shortstop back on top, lifting that trophy in Arlington.
Jeremy Dorn is a Dodgers fan living in Nashville, TN. He has written for outlets like Bleacher Report and FanRag Sports in the past and maintains a personal baseball blog called Born on the By You. You can follow him on twitter @Jamblinman
How The 2008 Rays Enchanted A Young Baseball Fan Far From Home
By Brian Harl
As I watched the Tampa Bay Rays defeat the Houston Astros on Saturday to advance to the World Series, I was met with a wave of emotion and nostalgia. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a Chicago Cubs fan first and foremost, but I can’t help but have an affinity towards the Rays, and a lot of that stems from my experiences following the 2008 Rays club that was the only Tampa Bay team to make it to the World Series until now.
I didn’t just watch the 2008 Rays from afar, I followed them closely and constantly. In 2008, I was stationed in Tampa Bay while serving in the Navy. I was a young enlisted sailor trying to find my way after leaving my small town in Illinois just a couple of years prior. Tampa Bay was the home of my first ever duty station. Once I got settled into my position at work, I started to look into what the Tampa Bay area had to offer in my free time.
As a baseball fan, I quickly began to dig into what the Tampa Bay Rays were all about. I knew the team had a small payroll and were the laughing stock of the AL East more often than not. I knew that the team had changed their name going into the 2008 season (removing the “Devil”) and changed their uniform and logo to freshen things up a bit. I knew that they had an eccentric manager in Joe Maddon who often took an unorthodox approach to the game. I also knew that the Rays stadium, Tropicana Field, wasn’t much to write home about and I knew that the Rays were far less popular than the Lightning (hockey) and Buccaneers (football) in the area.
All of that just intrigued me more than discouraged me though. Growing up several hours from the closest MLB stadium, I was excited to finally be living so close to an MLB team no matter their success or star power.
As I became more familiar with the Rays, I was also becoming close friends with Mike, an Army soldier who was also stationed in Tampa Bay, and as our friendship grew we started following the Rays together.
Getting tickets to Rays games in 2008 was quite simple and affordable, especially for an active-duty military member. We would head downtown to one of the Rays business offices and request free tickets to almost any game we wanted through a military perks program the Rays set up. We almost always got the tickets we asked for, and I guess you could say one of the benefits of being a baseball fan in a small market with a fairly muted fanbase at the time was that tickets were plentiful. We ended up going to probably 40 or 50 home games that season, and at the beginning, we had no idea that the team would be strong and resilient enough to make a World Series run. After all, the team finished last in the AL East in 2007 with a record of 66-96.
Mike and I didn’t care though. We just wanted to see live MLB baseball. We had some great times and made a lot of memories throughout the season. We ended up going to a game that was catered to school children one day. Buses of kids were brought to the game and once they arrived they were all given thundersticks (the inflatable balloon noodles that you bang together). Imagine being one of probably 1000 adults, surrounded by about 8000 kids with thundersticks all clapping together like they were ushering in the end times inside the dome that is Tropicana Field. I don’t know how Mike and I stayed through the entire game but I do know that we both had splitting headaches the entire ride home.
Mike and I would pay special attention to when James Shields would pitch and we would try to make it to those games because it seemed like Shields always gave the best chance for the Rays to strike out ten or more opponents in the game and reward us with a free Papa John’s pizza the next day - a pretty big deal for a young sailor and soldier at the time.
The point when I realized the Rays just might have something special going on in 2008 was when they swept my beloved Chicago Cubs in a three-game interleague series in mid-June. I was so excited that the Cubs would be coming to town and I came to the games wearing my Cubs gear expecting to see the likes of Derrek Lee and Alfonso Soriano put in work and beat up the Rays. What happened was quite the opposite and after that wake-up call, I started thinking that the 2008 Rays team could hold their own against practically anyone.
Most of our other friends at the time could name maybe one or two Rays players, but Mike and I knew the team inside and out that year. We watched Evan Longoria break out and become the AL Rookie of the Year. We counted every pitch Troy Percival bounced in front of home plate as he labored to close out games. We witnessed David Price’s MLB debut in September and memorable postseason performance. We constantly picked our jaws up off the floor as we watched Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton make web gem catches in the outfield on a regular basis. I can honestly say that we were two of the Rays’ biggest fans that season.
As the Rays kept finding ways to win, Mike and I were getting more unique opportunities to participate in their games. Mike and I both joined our military command’s color guard in 2008 and were able to participate in some really neat events where we represented the United States military, displaying the military service and American flags in parades and at numerous sporting events, to include marching the flags out onto Tropicana Field during the National Anthem before the games would start. Being the biggest baseball fans in the color guard group, Mike and I usually had first dibs on Rays games, and that opened some unique doors for us as the Rays kept fighting towards the Postseason. We were fortunate enough to be flag bearers for some of the home ALDS and ALCS games.
When the Rays defeated the Red Sox to win the ALCS, Mike and I were ecstatic. We had watched this team grow and compete, and against all odds advance to the World Series the very year we started to follow the team, a true worst-to-first story. All of our color guard work paid off even further, as Mike and I were picked to march out the flags for the first game of the World Series, which was the first-ever World Series game at Tropicana Field. I remember hearing the roar of the crowd as Game One was set to get underway, and I will never forget looking at Mike and us both saying that we couldn’t believe we were about to walk onto the field where the World Series was about to be played.
As the announcer started up his remarks, the center field wall opened up and we began marching straight out towards home plate. As we walked onto the infield I just so happened to be positioned in our lineup that I stepped directly on second base. I immediately got chills. We halted between second base and the pitcher’s mound and held the flags proudly as the national anthem was performed while thousands watched from the stands and millions more watched on TV.
As the anthem was concluding, large firework sparklers started shooting off near the baselines, a surprise to all of us on the color guard and especially to Mike, as he held the American flag and began to sweat worrying about a stray spark hitting the flag and turning the special moment into a nightmare. Thankfully all the flags made it unscathed and once the anthem concluded Mike and I practically ran back to the changing room, threw on our civilian clothes, and hustled to our complimentary lower-level seats behind third base to take in the game.
My ticket stubs from the 2008 World Series
Fast forward to game two and I actually wasn’t on the color guard roster that game. I was bummed out and was sitting at home watching from my couch when I got a call from Mike, who was on the color guard that night. He said that one of the service members didn’t want to stay for the game and that there was a complimentary ticket with my name on it. I drove across the bay like I was auditioning as a stunt driver for The Fast and the Furious franchise and made it to the game shortly after first pitch. The Rays went on to win that game, their only win of the Series.
I still can't believe how lucky we were. Two young guys getting free tickets to the World Series to watch a team that we began following super closely that very season. The Rays ended up losing the Series to a really great Philadelphia Phillies team, but after it was all said and done Mike and I had made some memories that few get the chance to ever experience.
So as the Tampa Bay Rays prepare to return to the World Series this year I want to wish them the best. I am a big fan of the little guys, the underdogs, and the team players and the Rays embody each of those characteristics wholeheartedly. While I’m not in Tampa Bay anymore, I will be cheering them on from afar and hope that a couple of fans like me and Mike are having the time of their lives and making memories they will cherish for years to come.
Brian Harl is a lover of all things baseball and a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan. He is a freelance baseball writer and currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter @cubs_corner.
Extra Innings
“I didn’t know much before I came over, I just knew he was a good shortstop, could swing it a little bit. Getting to see him day in and day out is definitely a blessing. I have really one job, and that’s just to get on base and stay there pretty much until he hits me in, which doesn’t take long.” - Mookie Betts discussing Corey Seager
"The (2008) Tampa Bay Rays had become the latest beacon for the game's downtrodden. Like a high-pitched whistle audible only to junkyard dogs, their message was clearly heard by baseball mongrels. They spoke to the Reds, to the Pirates, to the Royals -- to all the teams that have been down for so long, hope had become just another four-letter word." - Sportswriter Tom Singer