Marcus Semien was quietly rather good again in 2024
With the 2024 regular season over, it is time for us to go back and take a look at the players who appeared for the Texas Rangers this season.
Today, we look at second baseman Marcus Semien.
Is there a typical Marcus Semien season?
I ask that because my initial reaction to his 2024 campaign was that it was a typical Marcus Semien season. He had a .237/.308/.391 slash line on the year, and his 699 OPS was the lowest he’s had since a couple partial seasons since he first entered the league, but that is largely a byproduct of offense being down throughout MLB. His 100 OPS+ is actually the fifth best of his career, and of the nine non-COVID seasons he’s played since being up in the big leagues for good, he’s had an OPS+ between 95 and 106 in six of them. He put up a 4.1 bWAR, which is within spitting distance of his career 4.9 bWAR per 162 games.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that there’s actually such a thing as a “typical” Marcus Semien season. He broke into the big leagues as a middling-hitting, defensively limited shortstop, becoming an everyday play for the A’s in 2015 after the White Sox sent him there in the Jeff Samardzija trade. In 2018, he took a big step forward defensively, then followed that up with an MVP caliber season in 2019, when he put up a .285/.369/.522 slash line.
Then there was 2020, and a bad COVID season, when Semien didn’t hit at all. A one year pillow contract with Toronto ensued, with Semien moving from shortstop to second base. He took to second base like Josh Hamilton took to the Home Run Derby, winning a Gold Glove while putting up very good defensive metrics and also putting up a 131 OPS+ — another MVP-caliber season, leading to his signing a seven year deal with the Rangers.
Year One in Texas, his offense dipped, not quite to where he had been pre-breakout, but below his two great years. He continued to play exceptional defense, however, and also decided to become a basestealer, going 25 for 33 on stolen base attempts after never having had more than 15 stolen bases in a season prior.
Then 2023, another MVP caliber year (and his third third place finish in the MVP balloting in five years) driven by quality offense and great defense, followed by 2024, another down (though not bad by any means) offensive year that still resulted in an above-average season due to his quality defense at an important defensive position.
All this to say, I’m not sure that there really is such a thing as a “typical Marcus Semien season.” He’s had a varied career, marked by his evolving and changing as a player. I am reminded of a Bill James line some forty years ago, I think about Sixto Lezcano, where he said something to the effect that having Lezcano was like investing in silver — you know it will have value, but how much value is unpredictable.
Similarly for Semien — since 2016, his yearly bWAR has been 3.5, 1.8 (in 85 games), 4.4, 8.5, 0.4 (COVID), 7.1, 5.5, 7.4, and 4.1. Save for 2020 (and pro-rating his 2017 season over a full year), he’s been anywhere from All Star caliber to MVP caliber every year for seven years. Since the start of 2016, his 42.8 bWAR is the eighth highest in the majors. Here, for your eyeballs’ informational purposes, are the top 10:
Mookie Betts — 61.2
Aaron Judge — 52.2
Jose Ramirez — 49.6
Mike Trout — 49.0
Freddie Freeman — 45.8
Francisco Lindor — 45.7
Nolan Arenado — 44.3
Marcus Semien — 42.8
Manny Machado — 40.8
Jose Altuve — 40.1
Not bad company, there. Semien, along with nine guys who seem likely to end up in the Hall of Fame when it is all said and done.
Will Semien end up joining them in the Hall? Its an interesting question, and a difficult one to answer at this stage of his career. A few years ago it would have been an easy “no,” and I imagine some folks would say that’s still the case. But with 17 bWAR in the last three years, as well as winning a ring as one of both the leaders and best players on a title team, I think the odds have shifted a fair amount, even though Semien got a bit of a late start in terms of accumulating value in his career.
Semien just finished his age 33 season, and the majority of his playing time in his career has been at shortstop. He has 45.8 bWAR in his career to date. Of the 23 Hall of Famers who spent at least half of their time at shortstop through their age 33 season, 15 of them accumulated more bWAR than Semien has to date. On the other hand, among those not in the Hall, only three had more than 45.8 bWAR through age 33. One of them is ARod (105.4), who doesn’t count, one is Francisco Lindor (49.7), who is on that list above, and one is Jim Fregosi (47.9), who looked like a sure-fire Hall of Fame through 1970, his age 28 season, but then started suffering from back problems that dogged him the rest of his career, making him pretty much a part-time player from 1971-78.
The names around Semien on that list are interesting. He’s tied in bWAR with Vern Stephens, the power hitting shortstop for the Browns and Red Sox who put up a big chunk of his numbers during WWII, when the level of play was down leaguewide. Troy Tulowitzki, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada are all within 2-3 wins of that total, and they all kind of fall in the same category, guys who were great for a period of time and then fell off the cliff in their early 30s. There’s Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts in the low-40s. And there’s Bert Campaneris, who the advanced stats really like and suggest are underrated.
Of course, Semien’s situation is complicated by the fact that he’s now a second baseman, rather than a shortstop, and likely will end his career with more time at the keystone position. For Hall of Famers who played at least half their games at second base through age 33 — and there are 19 of them — 12 had accumulated at least 50 bWAR through age 33, and 16 had at least 46.0 bWAR. The three who didn’t are Nellie Fox (45.6), Bill Mazeroski (37.4), and Red Schoendienst (37.0), all of whom had to get in through the Veteran’s Committee.
Meanwhile, 11 players who fit that description accumulated at least 40 bWAR through age 33 but haven’t made the Hall. That includes the active — or just retired — Robinson Cano, Chase Utley, Dustin Pedroia, Jose Altuve, and Ian Kinsler, as well as Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker, who I think are widely viewed as HOF-worthy candidates who have been shafted.
Semien’s eventual Hall of Fame case will be hurt by having played for a number of organizations — players that have bounced around get less support than those who played mostly for one team — as well as having switched positions. He also fits the parameters of the type of player who often gets overlooked in the voting for the Hall — well-rounded player who does a lot of things well, strong defensively at an important defensive position, no one carrying skill that you can point to. That said, with the new generation of voters, those players are starting to get more recognition, and their chances of being voted in are increasing, and Semien having a ring, as well as a reputation as a great character guy and team leader, will help.
Semien has four more years left on the 7 year, $175 million deal that he signed with the Rangers prior to the 2022 season. I think the Rangers are quite happy with what they’ve gotten from Semien so far, even factoring in the decline that one would expect Semien to experience over the remainder of the deal. If Semien is able to play at close to the same level the next four years as he did in 2024, I think the talk about his Hall case will get much more serious.
Previously: