Star free agent shortstop Marcus Semien has paid a lot of money to seduce the Texas Rangers of the season.
He has signed a seven-year, $ 175 million contract to play in Texas for the foreseeable future, but he hasn’t made the kind of numbers we’ve seen from him in recent seasons.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the shortstop is hitting .157 / .223 / .209, with no home runs and only two stealing bases.
The Rangers certainly expected more from their star signing.
Worst of all, there are no signs of a turnaround in his season.
“Marcus Semion has a thorn in his side that the dead ball hit him,” John Anderson tweeted with a picture of his Statcast profile.
Dead Ball kills Marcus Semion with a fork pic.twitter.com/czWQcblXrx
– John Anderson (JonPgh) May 18, 2022
The quality of communication in Semian is less than ideal
He is not hitting the ball hard and the quality (and quantity) of his communication suggests that he is one of the worst hitters in baseball so far.
In addition, judging by his 34th percentile outs Above Average (OAA), his defense has also taken a step back.
This is truly a disastrous performance from a talented player who has been one of the leaders of the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for the last three seasons before 2022.
He has the talent to turn things around in the end, but he really seems to be affected by the dead ball: the balls he has batted have not traveled long or hard enough.
There should be at least some concern at the Rangers front office because of Semion’s performance.
Although it is still really too early, there is time to work through his struggles.
But Semian was among the worst MLB regulars in 2022 and that’s a fact.