G sez,
[Smoak is going to walk more] than A-Gone, at least early-career A-Gone. He just is. Adrian Gonzalez was in the Paul Konerko sort of hitter for me - doesn't walk as much as he should given his strengths, but still does plenty of damage. The last couple of years Gonzalez has gone to another level, walking far more and punishing mistakes a bit better. He looks like he's climbed out of that hitter family - a learner, as you said.
I'm having trouble with Smoak's "family" of hitter. Is he Thome-class? Will he swing at more pitches and bump his Ks up in order to max out his power scale?
Being a switch-hitter, he shouldn't run the giant splits that Thome or even A-Gone have. I can't even imagine a Thome batter with no same-handed weaknesses.
I don't think he's gonna club like Thome, though. Line-drive percentage, swing plane...not really Thome-like. The comp that is always made is the lazy one - Teixeira. But you look at Teix's career and what Smoak looks like, and think, "Can Smoak put up a .900 OPS against lefties and righties, hit 40 doubles and 35 HRs a year, have a decent power-hitter average and play good D?"
Yeah. I'd like to think he can, scarily enough. Not this year, but soon.
That stupid Teixeira comp is the one that makes sense. Sometimes lazy can still be right, I guess.
And if Smoak decides to walk a hundred times a year, as A-Gone has, instead of Teix's 80...oof.
He's got a loooot of ground to cover before we even get to that point, but right now Smoak's revving his engine in the early season and making Jack look good on that Lee trade. Here's to several more months like these past 2 weeks for him, as he continues to grow right before our eyes.
~G
I did not realize that Justin Smoak was going to walk this much! (We're not going by his BB totals in 12 games; we're going by his game in the batter's box.)
At this point, because of the BB rate, the approach in the box, and the confirmed off-field power, I'm settling pretty well on Tex II. Smoak will (likely) share the following defining characteristics with Teixeira:
- Extreme BB, like 120+ per year
- K's within reason, not up into the Dunn/ Reynolds range - good EYE, 0.70
- Not an Edgar-level HIT skill (.280 AVG)
- Plus-plus natural power, though not Dunn level (30-39 homers)
In other words: a Smoak comp would be a LH* hitter with TONS of walks, nicely-limited K's ... good but not special ability to bisect the ball ... and a glorious homer swing echo'ing a Junior-type swing.
Very few hitters line up with that profile. The main one right now is Mark Teixeira, who I believe was G-Money's very first thought back in August 2010.
.
As it happens, Smoak also shares the following eerily-similar characteristics with Teixeira, and the comp becomes kinda chillin':
- Switch-hitting (!)
- They're carbon-copy big slow good-hands 1B's
- Same physical size ... and similar genteel, hard-working personalities
- Both came up with, um, the Texas Rangers
- Both were big-conference Southern college superstars, drafted #5 and #7 respectively
- Both quickly conquered the high minors and then were questioned in their ML debuts
... we remember uber-scout Inside Pitch watching Teixeira debut in the majors, slapping his face into his hands, and wondering how Teixeira would ever cover the holes in his swing. Pitch changed his mind about a year later.
Teixeira and Smoak even have similar-looking baby faces. (Bill James used to note that similar stats matches often resembled each other in appearance, such as Mike Cameron and Torii Hunter.) Smoak looks more like Tex in the face than he looks like, say, Eric Wedge or Jack Cust or Brendan Ryan.
Eric Wedge talks about the "heartbeat" of a player ... Teixeira is a nice guy who keeps an even keel, handles challenges well, and who lets his bat do the talking. Aw, shucks, maw, gotta go, I got some grounders to take.
...........
An ambitious comp to be sure, but that's why Smoak was taken #7 overall. Smoak isn't guaranteed $100M+, but he's at the same point Tex was just before Tex was established. Tex wasn't guaranteed an All-Star career after 100 AB's in the bigs, and neither is Smoak.
That'll do for me. Smoak is Tex II in my book. It'll take a fair bit to shake me off that one.
.
Cheerio,
Dr D