Hitters Notebook: Seth Stephenson

Looking back over the countless pieces of advice Detroit Tigers High-A outfielder Seth Stephenson received from his father, John, one stands out above the rest.

“Everywhere you go, hustle.”

Stephenson, 23, was sitting in the dugout, energetically working through a snack bar and preparing for his final game of the 2024 regular season, his first full year with the West Michigan Whitecaps.

Once you get to know the Texas native, you learn quickly that he applies hustle to almost everything. If Stephenson isn’t pacing around, he’s talking. Sometimes, it’s both. Nothing Stephenson does is done with minimal effort.

After all, it’s what John drove home from a very early age.

“He gave me so much stuff,” Stephenson said. “I don’t even know. I feel like I’m kind of a wild child. He was more wild than me. He told me all kinds of stuff. The biggest thing is, I would say, if I ever was not giving 110% effort, I was hearing it. And yeah, just hustle.

“Everywhere I go, hustle. He was a hustler, and that’s what I try to go through life as,” Stephenson said. “I just like the hustle and to be known as I’m never going to slack off.”

A graduate of Hays High School in Buda, Texas in 2019, Stephenson got used to the idea of betting on himself. This became even more of a reality when Stephenson was unexpectedly faced with the tragic loss of his father to a heart attack the summer of his senior year.

Despite not being able to have his father physically at his side, John’s words and influence, and the support of his mother, Melissa, have found a way to continue impacting Stephenson’s baseball journey to this day.

“I like to get my work in and go as hard as I can possibly go, because that’s what he showed me,” Stephenson said. “I just try to follow in those footsteps.”

With just one Division One offer to play baseball after high school, Stephenson opted to attend Temple College about an hour and a half away from his home town.

Over two seasons, the former shortstop slashed .363/.424/.616 with 39 extra-base hits, 54 RBI and 39 stolen bases over 74 career games.

Landing as a Top 200 draft prospect in 2021, Stephenson received a call of interest in the sixth round of the draft from the Detroit Tigers. But knowing he hadn’t quite gotten to where he believed he could, Stephenson once again bet on himself and made the choice to attend the University of Tennessee to focus on continuing his development.

“It was so hard because that’s your dream growing up, right?” Stephenson said. “I’ve been playing since four years old. It was my dream, to get drafted, and play in MLB, and then I finally get the call and I just said, ‘No.’ I don’t know, it definitely was hard to say no.”

It was there that Stephenson really began to discover his identity as a hitter. It’s lost on no one that Major League teams have a tendency to be drawn to certain body types, when it comes to offensive prospects. For Stephenson, standing at 5’9 and 165 pounds, it became clear that learning to maximize the build he’d been given would lay the groundwork for his future professional career.

“I think Tennessee prepared me very, very well,” Stephenson said. “I don’t think I would’ve been ready out of junior college at all. Tennessee prepared me so much. It’s really a Major League program over there. Everything we do (in professional baseball), Tennessee’s doing it, base-running-wise, hitting-wise, preparation, weight room. Just being there for the year I was, it prepared me in so many ways.”

Volunteers head coach, Tony Vitello, was among the first to drive home the importance of a hitter’s identity.

“He pounded in my head, ‘We don’t need you to hit home runs, we need you to get on base and score runs,’” Stephenson said.

In his final season with Temple College, Stephenson hit nine home runs. But when he reached the SEC and saw his offensive counterparts, reality set in.

“I’m taking batting practice with these kids and I’m like, ‘I’m not a power hitter,'” Stephenson said. “I got around these bigger guys, these SEC guys, and I just realized I wasn’t a power hitter really quick. I hit zero home runs in the fall and Coach (Vitello) had a talk with me. Like I said, he sat me down and told me, ‘You show up to the ballpark and you look like you want to go four-for-four, with four home runs every day. That’s not what we need out of you.'”

“He made me bunt,” Stephenson said. “I didn’t bunt in JUCO at all, and I just had to pick up on small ball stuff. I just learned my game, and using my legs has been the biggest thing.”

Tigers Come Calling

And just like that, the Tigers came calling once again. And this time Stephenson was ready to accept Detroit’s 7th-round slot in the 2022 draft.

Stephenson wasted no time in showing how his speed and reinvented offensive approach could quickly become something to watch. After booking nine stolen bases over 10 games in his 2022 introduction to Class A Lakeland, Stephenson turned around and recorded a combined 70 stolen bases the following year between a return to Lakeland and a 14-game introduction to the Midwest League to end the 2023 regular season.

Stephenson’s return to the Midwest League in 2024 uncovered yet another need for reinvention. For Stephenson, that specifically meant a focus on improving his swing path.

“When I was at Tennessee and even at the junior college level, I had a hard time hitting breaking balls,” Stephenson said. “I’ve always had a flatter bat path and a steeper attack angle to the ball. So, the breaking ball’s coming down and I’d have a steeper path, so I would chop them all in the infield, which had always been fine because I just run.

“But as the infielders got better and the pitching got better, it was like I had to make an adjustment,” Stephenson said. “Since day one of getting drafted by the Tigers, we’ve been working on (swing) path, path, path. So now, it’s really cool when I have two strikes, I hit a line drive on a curveball, and I’m like, ‘Now I’m getting better.’

Seth Stephenson speeds around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. It’s his 5th home run of the year. pic.twitter.com/fyWI3raxH1

— Tigers ML Report (@tigersMLreport) July 31, 2024

“I’ve learned so much just approach-wise, and the development of hitting that’s just actually having an approach versus every pitcher, you can’t have the same approach versus every guy,” Stephenson said. “Some guys are two-seam, sinker guys, and some guys are ride guys, throwing at the top of the zone. I’ve realized I can’t have the same swing at every pitcher and I’ve got to have different mindsets that’s going to allow me to even have a chance to hit them.”

This reinvention led Stephenson to having an electric month in August, slashing .375/.440/.413 with an .853 OPS, 30 hits and 18 runs scored.

Oh, and that speed that had positioned Stephenson as arguably the fastest member of the Tigers’ organization wasn’t lost on scouts either. “I call him Forrest Gump,” one American League scout said. “If you let him, that kid would run off the face of the map. He’s got two gears: fast and faster.”

Just like hitting, Stephenson was forced to take a big picture review of the speed he had grown to depend on for so long.

“This year, I talked with the base running coordinator and some of the Tigers’ coaches about how I need to get smarter on the bases,” Stephenson said. “We know I can steal a bag, but it’s like, can you steal a bag when you need to, in the right situation?

“One thing I really took pride on this year is not just running to run,” Stephenson said. “There’s been plenty of times where I probably could have just ran to run, and the game just didn’t call for it. I tried to play smarter this year. I’m trying to be a more complete ballplayer, and that comes with running in the right times, and running in the right counts.”

Ending the 2024 regular season with a Midwest League-leading 60 stolen bases, Stephenson successfully booked his second consecutive league-leading campaign, following his Florida State League-leading 62 stolen bases in 2023.

Seth Stephenson steals his 60th base of the season. @ThatDanHasty on the call. pic.twitter.com/UiremeNmQL

— Tigers ML Report (@tigersMLreport) September 8, 2024

“I’m learning myself as an individual,” Stephenson said. “This year, I’ve been taking a step back and really just figuring out who I am, and over the last two years really, who I am as a player and then trying to make myself the best version of that as possible.”

We’re certain that the effort put in by Stephenson this season has John smiling.