A guy thats great at squaring up the ball and has very good pop, but has only okay batspeed is the type of guy who would benefit GREATLY from focusing on hitting fastballs the other way.
Interesting to see that hes hit offspeed a lot better than fastballs so far in his career, but his spray chart shows that hes a pull hitter. Even this HR was off of a changeup.
He doesn't have a quick enough bat to look to pull fastball and adjust offspeed, so its really important that he become a patient thinker at the plate and also hit the fastball to the opposite field.
In other words, instead of either anticipating to pull fastball OR look offspeed, he should think of hitting the fastball away to left field while adjusting to offpeed and only looking to pull the fastball mostly in hitter's counts.
Originally I thought Texiera was a better comp and it is in a lot of a ways he is, but Smoak needs to hit more like Adrian Gonzalez.
{Tex is a pull hitter from both sides of the plate with plus batspeed, Adrian Gonzalez is an extreme opposite field hitter with huge pop.}
Q. Any ML comps for this swing?
A. You know whose swing does look like this quite often? Russell Branyan's. He also taps himself easily in the backside at times, because of the slingshot effect.
But of course, the Muscle isn't reputed to have Smoak's 75 HIT talent (on the 20-80 scale). Imagine Branyan if he could square the ball like Jeter. Remember now, Smoak's ability to hit for AVG is an absolute given. A few people fret (like I did, two weeks ago!) whether he's got the mojo for the SoDo.
Asked and answered. Smoak has a Branyan swing and once he starts anticipating, he's going to hit them out in bucketfuls. Hence the GMs' insider opinions that Smoak is even a better prospect than Montero.
This kid could run a 1000 OPS in Safeco someday. Justin Smoak could become the best hitter in baseball. It's very realistic.
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Q. So Smoak's LH swing is not too long?
A. By the way, if you were wondering, some hitting coaches feel that Smoak's bat is angled a bit too far in this picture.
That is the only conceivable point at which Smoak's LH swing could ever be accused of being too "long". It's not in his hands, turn, or anything like that; some coaches just don't like for a hitter to get his bat wrapped around his head that far, even if he's just doing it with wrists.
Of course, Ichiro, Branyan, and many others do this. The young Junior did. Lot of great hitters do. Tiger Woods took over world golf with precisely this principle. It's the main complaint about Greg Halman.
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Does SSI buy the idea that you can have too much bat angle "at the top?" as such? Here is where the argument transposes 100% to golf. A golfer has too much angle only if his arc or timing gets off kilter.
If you're not a very skilled golfer, hit a chip shot off the tee. Or take the club back as far as your knees. If you're good, angle the club and get some power.
Most hitting coaches weren't very good. Like Casey said, "my catcher can't hit a curve ball, so he doesn't think anybody else can, either."
Here, we're not talking about winding the shoulders (the pitcher can't even see Smoak's numbers). We're just talking about bat angle, and that's exactly where the leverage comes from.
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Q. Anything else?
A. Loved that it was on an offspeed pitch, from one of the best offspeed pitchers in the game. Calmness in confusion. How did he go from fish-out-of-water to relaxed in one week?
It was a 1-2 pitch. Low and away - soft stuff outside on two strikes.
And, did you catch Weaver's reaction as Smoak made contact? :- )
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
I hear your points Taro, but his peripheral stats look pretty good. He has a line drive rate of 21% and only a 11% pop-up rate on flyballs as a righty, yet has a BABIP of 0.167. I mean, a BABIP of 4.5% lower than his line drive rate? While a strikeout rate of 26% is high, it's not dangerously high.
I'd expect him to end up league average or better vs. LH, but it might take two years.
League average is all you need in a platoon split.
Looking at his overall swing though, it does seem he'd be a better fit for the Adrian Gonzalez approach at hitting. Hes been mostly a pull hitter so far.
I think his downside is still 800+ OPS regardless, but if hes going to be a 900+ OPS type I think he needs a different approach.
I appreciate Doc's enthusiasm, but projecting anyone for an OPS of 1.000 is very bullish. There are currently 4 players doing it in the majors this year, only three players achieved it in 2009 or 2008, and Texeira has never done it. If Smoak is 0.900 year in year out, we have a legitimate all-star 1B.
If I had to guess, I'd have Smoak's '11-15 prime somewhere in the mid-800s with an average WAR of around 3.5.
He has a lot of similarities to Teixeira in player type and approach. The big difference though is Tex had an excellent RH swing and his bat was also a little quicker from the LH side. Being a converted 3B, Tex probably is slightly better defensively as well.
Before the trade I thought he'd be a mirror image of Tex (reading scouting reports and looking at the numbers), but after seeing his swing I see him as sort of a mini-Tex.
His swing really is more tailor-made for an Adrian Gonzalez type approach and I think thats what Doc may have intuitively been seeing in him when he came up with that comp.
What I like about Smoak is that he has great timing.
3-3 so far with a 2B and HR. 2 hits off of lefty Saunders.
I don't want people to think that I'm down on Smoak. His BABIP adjusted OPS would be in the low-to-mid 800s RIGHT NOW and I think he has a good shot at the ROY plus leading the Ms in OPS in the 2nd half.
In a few brief looks the LH swing of Smoak reminds me in some ways of George Brett. It appears to me that he keeps his weight back so well and so long over his left leg (with a little less "squat" or back knee bend than Brett). That allows him to stay back and then explode. There is so little stride it makes him appear very quiet with the body.
With his RH homer tonight it appears he has less squat from that side. but that was still a magnificent swing.
He will be a long time very productive hitter. A middle of the order guy for the next 12 years.
moe