Showstopper

Corey Seager is driven by a fear of failure. So how did he become the leader of a new generation of superstar shortstops? One sweet swing at a time.

- Robert Sanchez

THERE’S A HITTING area just off the weight room at the DODGERS’ spring training complex in Phoenix—seven netted batting tunnels with a roof and a long wall, fake turf and L-screens everywhere. At 8:30 on a chilly February morning, it’s a cave of activity. Catchers work on their pitch-framing at one end; at the other, hitters chat with coaches before taking hacks.

Then a ball explodes off a bat in Tunnel 4, and they all go quiet. A catcher steals a glance from his crouch. A hitter stops and stares. A couple of coaches line up along the netting behind home plate. Corey Seager, the 22-year-old All- Star shortstop and reigning National League rookie of the year, is putting in work.

His swing is already legendary around here; the efficiency with which Seager deploys his most lethal gift is profound. Power hitters are often famous for the violence of their swings, the high leg kicks and viciousness of force through the ball. Seager is the antithesis. There are no grand movements. His head is perfectly still, his back elbow perpendicular to his sinewy body. There’s a small toetap, a wide yawn of a step, a mass of controlled action ready to be unleashed forward. Seager’s left-handed swing is like the undercurrent of a river—liquid and beautiful and deceptively powerful, the source of its strength invisible to the naked eye.

Coach Shawn Wooten zips a ball underhand from behind a screen, and Seager pulls it toward a massive metal pole that’s holding up part of the roof. A resounding boonnnng echoes through the cave. Wooten zips another ball. Seager drills the pole again.