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In previous articles, SSI argued that it wouldn't matter anyway, even if Jeff Clement and Justin Smoak were stylistic doppelgangers.  Each new human being is born with a different brain, different learning patterns, and different ways of processing a pitched ball in flight.

But for those who might enjoy a list of the differences between Jeff Clement and Justin Smoak ... as you know, Dr. D lives to serve.

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=== Difference One:  Flashes ===

Jeff Clement has a lifelong 78 OPS+ in the major leagues, with a catastrophic EYE of 24:103.

He has never put together any single month (like, 20 games at least) in which he was a productive hitter.  In 2010 his best overall month was April, in which he batted .188.  In 2008 he was gasp-inducingly bad in April, May, and June, hitting .149, .172 and .159.

In August 2008, everything jelled and he had the one ML month of his life in which he held his own.   He parlayed a lucky .417 BABIP into an okay month -- but even then still only slugged .416, and he had a 4:17 ratio of walks to strikeouts.

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You don't need my stats, gentlemen.  You know from watching him.  Jeff Clement has never done anything but flail away.  That's because he's not a major league hitter.  We don't mean that as a cliche; we mean it literally -- like Michael Jordan and the typical class-A hitter, Jeff Clement lacks the capacity to hit major league pitching.

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Justin Smoak, on the other hand, has already shown us three separate stretches in which he has detonated ML pitching.  And he has, for weeks at a time, had ML pitchers absolutely refusing to throw him a decent strike.  When Smoak has been on, the pitchers have been terrified. 

In April 2011, for example, Smoak batted .283/.393/.527 and he had us all swooning away at the sheer beauty of his attack from the batter's box.  His EYE was 14:18 during that month, in sharp contradistinction to Clement's humorous air conditioning.  

... neither did Smoak's eye go away after he cooled off:  he walked 14 times in May 2011, and 12 times in June 2011.  Then, among other things, the problem with the thumb weighed heavier and heavier and the season was a washout.

We're not trying to sell Justin Smoak as a certified .300 hitter, or even one who can't miss.  But say you've got two running backs ... (a) Justin Forsett and (b) some guy who actually has rambled for 120+ yards in several different games during his career?

BaseballHQ builds a lot of its performance interpretation on this idea of "once a player shows a skill, he owns it." Clement didn't show a skill, because it didn't exist.