How Historic Was Corey Seager's Postseason?

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On behalf of The Launch Angle, we congratulate the Los Angeles Dodgers and their success in the 2020 World Series, as they won their first championship since 1988.

We also want to extend a special congratulations to shortstop Corey Seager, as he becomes the eighth player in MLB history to win MVP honors in both the League Championship Series and World Series in the same postseason. He is the fourth position player to accomplish this feat and the first since David Freese in the 2011 playoffs.

Recall, I wrote an article back in June, stating that David Freese had the greatest postseason that a batter could possibly have, with the prerequisite being that said player won the MVP award in both the LCS and in the Fall Classic. This was based on his combined performance statistically in these series, in comparison to the other offensive players who also reached the same achievement at the time of that writing, in Darrell Porter and Willie Stargell. For that exact post, click on the link below:

Link: https://www.launchbaseball.org/post/freeses-2011-postseason-by-the-numbers

For this article, we ponder the following question: Did Corey Seager just have the greatest postseason in Major League history?

Based on the numbers below, the answer is that David Freese still had the greatest postseason in baseball history:

Figure One

Amongst these four players in this rarified air, Seager ranks either 3rd or last in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS. While he hit the most home runs (7) and is tied for 1st in walks drawn, he did have the most strikeouts (10) and is third in SO/BB ratio (1.43), relative to Freese, Stargell and Porter.

With that said, Seager's performance in the playoffs in total, including the Wild Card and the NLDS, was rather historic. He is one of five players in the history of the game to crush at least 8 moonshots in the same postseason, joining Barry Bonds, Carlos Beltran, Nelson Cruz and Randy Arozarena. But while he deserved the MVP accolade in both the NLCS and WS, amongst players position players that have accomplished the same, his output was not superior. David Freese still retains the triumph of having the greatest postseason run, by a position player, in Major League Baseball lore.

Thank you so much for choosing The Launch Angle for some out-of-the-box baseball analysis! If you liked this post, click on this link for our previous article.