Anthony Seigler Deserves A Shot To Show His Worth, But He Will Need More Tangible Results Soon

Anthony Seigler is a canonically Brewers hitter, showcasing elite bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline without a lot of raw power. He's slashing just .188/.250/.188, which begs the question as to why Seigler is getting continued opportunities on the strong side of the platoon compared to Caleb Durbin.

The simplistic reason is that his slash line is a result of a small sample size of batted balls, and his expected numbers are .280/.333/.419, but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Seigler's plate appearances have been long, drawn-out affairs that often precipitate perfect launch angles and balls into the outfield grass, and he has been unfortunate with how many of these have been directed right at fielders. He lacks the power to clear the fences with any regularity, but he does spray the ball around quite effectively as a left-handed hitter.

To add to this, Seigler's performance at Triple A provided a larger sample of at-bats. It produced a profile that isn't often seen, with incredible consistency of good exit velocities without high-end, booming contact. Most hitters with a high average exit velocity are skewed by their volume of batted balls at 112 mph+, whereas Seigler just seems to find the barrel of the bat with a smooth, easy swing over and over again. Here are his stats as a left-handed hitter (from Eli-Ben Porat) in Triple A before he got called up:

The big thing to note here is that no pitch gave Seigler any real concern in terms of chase rates or in-zone contact, while he slugged well when swinging in the strike zone on nearly all offerings. That's changed very slightly in the majors, where he has struggled to catch up to some of the velocity on show. Pitchers are pounding him with fastballs on the outer third, and Seigler hasn't quite adjusted. He hasn't been able to get to the pull side, and it's holding him back just a little.

The swing decisions have been impressive, but he hasn't been walking much (as pitchers haven't found much to fear in his profile yet), and he's not quite contacting the ball with the same authority as he did in Nashville. All of that is perfectly normal for any hitter given the big jump in quality from Triple A to the majors; however, the Brewers don't have a lot of time for Seigler to figure it out, perhaps a couple of weeks. That's not to say he'll be demoted, but he might see far less frequent playing time after that point.

The other issue the Brewers have is that Caleb Durbin is looking more and more impressive against right-handers of late, with month-by-month production boosting since May:

While his season-long splits haven't been amazing, Durbin's relentless tenacity has far surpassed expectations with the glove at third base. More importantly, Durbin has already gone through the process of adjusting to big league pitching that Seigler just hasn't.

Seigler's underlying performance looks fantastic, and his at-bats are great to the naked eye, but there's only so long that can hold up when the Brewers are chasing every little win around the margins to keep their hot stretch going. There's every reason to believe that Anthony Seigler's luck can turn at any point, but that point needs to come sooner rather than later.

What do you think of the Anthony Siegler and Caleb Durbin platoon used by the Brewers of late? Do you trust Seigler's surface performance or his quality of contact more in the early going? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!