MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. — Ryan Siegel’s surgically repaired left hand still bothers him from time to time.

It still barks at him in the cold weather. But Siegel, a Sarver native and Freeport High School graduate, is feeling at his best on the baseball field for the first time since a pitch shattered his hand in April of 2012.

“They said it would take more than a year after the surgery to get it back to feeling 100 percent,” Siegel said. “They said it would take a year for me to fully recover.”

And it was a long year.

It took months for him to even be permitted to swing a whiffle ball bat. It took longer still for him to grip a real bat and take a rip.

The slow progress resulted in an up-and-down sophomore season at Mercyhurst College where he hit .279 in 38 games a year after batting .389 and winning the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year award.

This summer, though, Siegel feels strong and healthy for the first time since his freshman season in college.

It’s showing.

Siegel is leading the Futures Collegiate Baseball League — a circuit in New England similar to the Prospect League, where Siegel played in 2011 with Butler — with a .384 average in 32 games.

The left-handed hitter and outfielder for Martha’s Vineyard, tops the batting leaders by 12 points.

“He has great hand-eye coordination and his speed helps him out,” said Sharks manager Mike Miller. “He can beat out a ground ball in the hole for a hit. He’s a great guy at the top of the lineup.”

Siegel spent 10 days in the Cape Cod League, widely considered the best wooden-bat summer baseball league in the country, on a temporary contract with the Harwich Mariners at the start of the summer before being released.

“They sign guys to fill in until the guys who are playing in the College World Series come back,” Siegel said. “Unfortunately for me, a lot of their guys came back early, so I only had the chance to play in one scrimmage. But I learned a lot from the coaches and the players in that league and I have no doubts I belonged there.”

Siegel certainly has belonged from the start in the Futures League. He joined Martha’s Vineyard shortly after his release from the Mariners.

A center fielder by trade, Siegel has roamed mostly right field for the Sharks, who are 26-13 and in first place in the nine-team league.

“His defense has been really good,” Miller said. “It was a little bit of an adjustment for him out there. The ball comes off the bat differently, but there have been times when I see him go after a ball in the gap and he gets to it and it’s like, ‘Wow. How’d he make that play?’”

Siegel said he hadn’t played a corner outfield spot since high school until his time in right field for Martha’s Vineyard.

Siegel was a standout baseball player for Freeport, batting .521 with four home runs, seven doubles, 23 RBI and 16 stolen bases as a senior.

He started his college career at Coastal Carolina before he transferred to Mercyhurst.

Through it all, he has battled injuries.

“It’s just nice to be pretty healthy for the first time in awhile,” Siegel said. “It seems like I have always been dealing with injuries.”

Now all he’s dealing with is success — even if he doesn’t always look at the numbers.

“To be honest with you, I don’t even know what I am hitting,” Siegel said. “I try to evaluate myself by how good my at-bats are, if I’m making solid contact and not swinging at bad pitches.

“I’d be lying, though, if I had five great at-bats and didn’t feel disappointed if I didn’t get anything out of them.”