Corey Seager stands upright in the box, his 6-foot-4 frame at nearly full height with little bend in his knees, his hands held close in to his body just above the cursive "s" in the Dodgers script on his jersey. As the pitcher gets ready to deliver the ball, the hands twitch just a bit in fidgety anticipation. At the last moment, the hands go quiet. His front foot barely comes off the ground as he takes a small step forward to begin the transfer of energy. It's about as simple a swing as you can construct, mechanically efficient, and the results it produces speak for the talent of the hitter behind the swing.

The rookie shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers has somehow flown a little under the radar this season, despite numbers that make Seager not just the top Rookie of the Year candidate, but on the short list of MVP candidates as well. The Dodgers have gone through their usual turbulence -- Brett Anderson became the team's 13th different starting pitcher and 29th pitcher overall on Sunday -- but Seager, just 22, has been a steadying influence with his season-long consistency and is now hitting .309/.362/.531 with 21 home runs.

A couple things stand out to me. First, he's done a nice job against left-handed pitchers, something a lot of young left-handed hitters struggle with since they don't face many quality southpaws in the minors. He's hitting .258/.309/.453 against lefties, so there's room for improvement, but it's a solid line for such a young hitter. Even more impressive is his ability to hit the ball up the middle and the other way:

Look at the way Corey Seager sprays the ball around: pic.twitter.com/Ta6yfs9lfZ — David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) August 15, 2016

This is why it looks like he can be a .300 hitter in the majors. Consider what Tony Blengino wrote last week on ESPN Insider in breaking down Bryce Harper's struggles this season:

Lastly, the grounders. Harper has batted just .191 and slugged .202 on balls hit on the ground this season, though he has hit them hard enough to typically warrant about a .256 average and .278 slugging percentage. He does not earn an upward adjustment in this area, however, due to his extreme pull tendency on the ground. He has hit more than five times as many grounders to the pull side as compared to the opposite-field side, the threshold I use for application of a grounder-pulling penalty. Such hitters routinely face infield overshifts, which severely limit their production on the ground.

Seager, meanwhile, has hit 42 percent of his grounders to the pull side, 37 percent up the middle and 21 percent to the left side, so you can't shift him. His up-the-middle approach works because he has the power to hit the ball out to center field -- check the home runs to center field in the above hit chart.

Seager also has no obvious weak area in his plate coverage. He crushes anything in the middle zone of the plate, but likes the ball down as well:

And don't miss in the middle of the plate: pic.twitter.com/HBy0rJ3Gg9 — David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) August 15, 2016

Yes, he hasn't done much damage on pitches high and away, but he's not as helpless as, say, Mike Trout had been in the past in that area of the strike zone. Seager doesn't have Harper's control of the strike zone -- 37 walks, 92 strikeouts -- although we can expect that to improve in the future.

As for the MVP race, Seager is now tied for second in WAR behind Kris Bryant in a year that has no obvious leader (once Clayton Kershaw went down):

Bryant: 5.5 WAR

Seager: 4.6

Anthony Rizzo: 4.6

Nolan Arenado: 4.4

Starling Marte: 4.3

Ryan Braun: 4.3

Daniel Murphy: 3.9

Compared to the American League -- which has seven position players above 5.0 (Corey's older brother Kyle Seager has 4.9 WAR and ranks eighth) -- it's kind of a mediocre group of MVP candidates. Bryant is probably the favorite as he leads the NL in runs, is second in home runs, seventh in OPS, and 10th in RBIs. He's played good defense while shuttling between third base, left field, and right field (plus-8 Defensive Runs Saved). Seager, however, has played a solid shortstop (plus-2 DRS), erasing concerns that he won't have the range to stick there.

There's a big difference in the counting stats: Seager has 74 runs and 56 RBIs compared to Bryant's 90 and 72. You might think Seager hasn't hit well with runners on base, but such is not the case:

Men on: .337/.398/.511

RISP: .341/.423/.585

Bryant, meanwhile, has hit slightly worse with men on (.890 OPS) or RISP (.821 OPS) than he has overall. So Seager's lack of RBIs is merely a result of lack of opportunities. He's hit second most of the season (although he's hit third in three of the past four games). Dodgers leadoff hitters haven't been terrible, ranking 10th in the NL in OBP; the bigger culprit has been Dodgers' No. 9 hitters, who rank 15th in OBP and OPS.

Seager's best chance at MVP honors will be a strong stretch run and having the Dodgers overtake the Giants in the NL West. If Bryant and Rizzo split some first-place votes, Seager could sneak in and match Fred Lynn of the 1975 Red Sox and Ichiro Suzuki of the 2001 Mariners as the only players to win the Rookie/MVP double.