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Q.  So what's the holdup here?

A.   Three things.

First of all, let's not be among those chowderheads who need for a prospect to hit 40 homers as a rookie.  ;- )  Edgar Martinez, in his day, had his doubters.  He had them worse when he started slow in the bigs.  Jim Lefebvre tried to flush Jay Buhner out of baseball.

Jose Bautista?  Alex Gordon?  David Ortiz?  Ryan Howard?  Check out Carlos Pena, once the #1 lefty hitter in the minors ... who needed until age 29, and then at age 29 slammed up an OPS+ of 170.

Young kids sometimes need a year or three.  That's all.

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Second of all, Smoak can be kinda psychologically fragile.  He gets shrill, he pulls his head off the ball, he gets "greedy" and overswings and gets into a funk.  Here's an SSI article on it.

You know who else had this as a young player?  Edgar Martinez.  The scouts used to bust him ... "when he relaxes into his swing he's a devastating player.  But you can't get him to settle down up there."

This fragility, in my worldview, is part of being a nice guy and part of being somewhat shy and soft-spoken.  He cares about what other people think, is kind of easily embarrassed.  Until he completely convinces himself that he can play -- exactly as was the case with Edgar -- he may have some ups and downs.

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Third of all, Dr. D will cheerfully admit that Smoak has some work to do on curve balls and changeups.  He's getting better; in his hot streaks he can look glorious waiting on a curve ball.  But he doesn't quite have it yet.

SSI remains confident about Smoak's future against offspeed.  Here, let's check a couple of vids on it ...