This offseason has been a peculiar one for the Los Angeles Dodgers as while they seemingly have been linked to every marquee free agent and trade target, they have yet to make any big moves.
One of the reasons for that is they return a talented, young team that won a franchise-record 106 games in 2019. And while the Dodgers fell short of ending the franchise’s World Series drought, they are once again heavy favorites to win the National League West in 2020.
While the offseason is not over and more moves could certainly be made, the Dodgers players who were involved in trade rumors had to have been relieved when they were able to show up to FanFest on Saturday, still a member of the organization.
One of those players was Corey Seager, who was linked to the Cincinnati Reds, in particular, for much of the winter.
It had been a while since Seager’s name was involved in trade rumors, as the 2016 National League Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Star looked to be on a track to being one of the best young players in all of baseball before getting injured in 2018.
After having a bounce-back season in 2019, Seager admitted to being taken aback by seeing his name in trade rumors. “Not bothered, maybe surprised is a better word,” he said at Dodger Stadium.
“But you try not to look into it as much as possible. You try and just be in the moment, you try and prepare for next year with the team you’re already with and if it happens, it happens kind of thing. I tried to stay out of it as much as possible, I guess.”
It ultimately looks like L.A. will be holding onto the 25-year-old and he will once again be the team’s starting shortstop in 2020.
Seager led the NL with 44 doubles last season while hitting .272/.335/.483 with 19 home runs, 82 runs scored and 87 RBI in 134 games. Most importantly, he finished the year healthy, which led to an unconventional offseason by his standards.
“Just kind of a normal offseason for me for the first time in a while,” Seager noted. “So just a lot of strength training and stuff like that, trying to get back and everything and hopefully I have a good year.”
With the All-Star Game in L.A. this year, Seager added one his goals is to make it back to the Midsummer Classic for the first time since 2017.
“It will be a really cool event,” he said. “Obviously you want to make as many All-Star Games as you can but being a home team would obviously be pretty special for me.”
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