Seattle Sports Insider

Justin Smoak

2014 and beyond

Posted by

8/26/13

First, let me apologize for not posting more ridiculously rambling articles recently. Finishing up my second fiction novel for release, so that's been occupying my time. Several new September additions and the post-script on the 2013 season should keep us busy looking both backwards and forwards, though.

And for one of those cases, we have Justin Smoak, who's been brought up in several recent shouts.

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First maxim: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Second maxim: don't crush the bird in the hand just because it's a chipper finch and not a glorious falcon.

So let's start with the second maxim first. Are we expecting too much from Smoak?

First base is a pretty stratified position. Number of players, ranked by OPS (350 PAs):

Over .850: Five
.800 to .850: Five
.750 to .800: Ten

So for 30 teams, it's a 17/17/33/33 kind of split, best to worst. It's hard to get a top-tier guy - or even a second-tier one. First basemen used to be the easist way to get production. A decade ago, more than half the teams had a first baseman with an OPS over .800, and the only guys under ~.750 were due to injury or playing for the Oakland platoon or the miserable Royals. An .800 OPS actually got you ranked BELOW the "average player" for your position, thanks to the excellence at the top. Times/lack of PEDs have changed the landscape at first.

Smoak's sOPS+ versus everyone else at his position is 104. Now we can talk about whether his walks are inflating that figure beyond the scope of his actual usefulness in the lineup, but he's not making outs. He's stretching innings and taking pitches even if he's not driving in (any) runs. You'd like your first baseman to be an RBI guy, and there are eight of them with 80+ RBIs on the year. But 1B isn't really showing up as a power position this year.

There are five first basemen who will hit 30+ HRs this season. Smoak is hanging out in the ~15 HR sweetspot with Brandon Belt, Morneau, Napoli, A-Gone, Lind... that's just where the current guys are at. They are showing Olerud power, not Pujols power.

Last year? 5 with 30+ HRs, high of 33. Smoak's 19 were good for a top-half finish.
2011? 7 with 30+, 13 with 20+.

Is THAT a change from a decade ago?

2003: 7 with 30+, high of 47. Names: Thome, Sexson, Delgado, Giambi, Bagwell, Helton, Derrek Lee. So basically the HOF hitters or massive crushers (as well as at least one steroid user).

We seem to be in an age without many bombers at first base, and 30+ has never been the standard for manning the position. Hitting 20 HRs makes you a decent power threat when compared to your peers. Smoak is showing 20 HR power (if he plays a full complement of games). HRs aren't his issue.

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So Smoak has good on-base skills (9th among first basemen) and adequate HR power (more HR/PA than Swisher, Hosmer, Belt, Votto, Fielder...). What's his downfall?

Honestly, it's doubles - because Smoak does not hit them. He's never really hit them. He might hit more HRs than doubles on the year, and he's only hit 7 more doubles than HRs for his career. He has no idea what a two-bagger looks like. Maybe that's a result of his pull tendencies that make his shots down the line into long singles for a plodding 1B with no base-running skills whatsoever, because even compared to other slow-footed hitters he's just not capable of hitting em.

Doubles rate:
LaRoche: every 17.5 PAs (.265 average)
Olerud: every 18 PAs (.295 average)
Howard: every 23 PAs (.270 average)
Smoak: every 27 PAs (.230 average)

Smoak has crawled allll the way up to a 2B-every-25-PAs this year with his .260 average. He simply can't take two bags. It's a single, a walk, or occasionally a HR. That makes his lower HR totals a problem they wouldn't otherwise be. His 35% XBH rate isn't atrocious overall, but that doesn't take into account just how few hits he's been getting. When ranked against AB instead of by hit, it gets ugly.

XBH, as a percentage of at-bats:
LaRoche: 11.5%
Olerud: 10.2%
Howard: 12.7%
Smoak: 8.1%

Morales(10.7%), Ibanez(10.6%), Morse (10.2%), Seager(9.6%), Saunders(8.3%)... it's hard to find guys on this team who aren't better for their careers at XBHs-per-AB than Smoak. Ackley's worse (6.8%) but I don't find that comforting. The limits of Smoak's game as currently constructed are glaring. He's standing on first base quite a bit, but that's all he's doing.

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The reason Justin isn't an RBI man is because he can't plate a man from first, or even always from second. He's not a gap hitter. He hits pull singles and pull HRs, and walks to first base. Does that make him an ideal first baseman? Far from it.

Which takes me back to Maxim #1: Be grateful for what you have, and that you have a bird at all. In this age where there are a lack of sluggers at first base it's not the end of the world. Who are we going to trade for or add that's better? Adam LaRoche is priced as 12 mil/yr and is a comparable (actually worse, but whatever) bat to Smoak. Napoli was a little better in a much better offensive park, and struck out in 34% (!) of his PAs. We could grab him this offseason if we wanted, but how much gain is there going to be? Swish has 45 ribbies for $11 mil. Garrett Jones is bad. Moss is a lefty platooner too. Where's the upgrade?

Justin's as good as we're going to get, going outside the organization. There are very few available 1B worth anything, especially for the price difference between their salary and the $2ish million that Smoak is gonna get. And we have in-house options on the way.

I like Choi better than a lot of people do, but with he and Deej looking very good for a 2015 roster spot at some point (at which point we can flip Smoak's last year and a half of club control for another closer or something) I don't see the prospect out there that's available and better than our in-house 1B options. DJ Peterson has HR power and the ability to hit for some average as well. Choi is a doubles machine with an incredibly rock-solid batting eye and really good on-base skills. They might not be any better than this version of Smoak, but they won't be worse, and they'll be CHEAP.

Which means we can spend our money some place other than first base.

Somebody just make sure we get Morales back this off-season and keep Smoak well out of the MOTO, because driving in runs is a skill he does not possess, and that I doubt he ever will. Richie Sexson he ain't. If we accept that he's a fluffy finch and not a fearsome falcon at the plate and treat him as such, he still has value because he's not a black hole in the lineup. He's not Cust, or Kotchman. Justin Smoak pulls his own weight, he just can't pull anyone else's.

Don't construct the lineup to require Smoak to carry his fellow hitters and it shouldn't be a problem.

Blog:

Gordon

Comments

Best line of the post...

"Don't construct the lineup to require Smoak to carry his fellow hitters and it shouldn't be a problem."
By the way Gordon, while you were pre-occupied with your novel (congrats) I was introduced to your brother from another mother. His name is Blake Money, and he played for the Southeast in the Little League World Series. On an ESPN game broadcast they said his teammates nicknamed him "B-Money." They also said he has a brother whose nickname is...I guess, not surprisingly, ..."Cash."
Here's a link to him on Baseball Factory: http://www.baseballfactory.com/LLWS2013/Southeast/Blake_Money

Not quite LaRoche in this sense:

LaRoche is (career) .244-300-.431 against LHP. I would love Smoak to have that set of numbers...or that ability to slug against lefties. Smoak slugs .359 vL. In Smoak's "breakout" '13, he still slugs .423 vs. LaRoche's career .491 vR. Hey, Smoak has value vR (he walks a ton), I'm not discounting that. But he's a black hole against lefties, and this lineup doesn't do well with black holes. I would have gladly signed mark Reynolds just for that vL 1B role, and some flexibility. 6 million-ish for next year would have been about right. And he would help us compete.
I am actually not advocating a Smoak dumping (I've come a long way, haven't I?). IBut I would point out that there may be a cheap platoon-type upgrade that helps us considerably. That upgrade may be a cheap as having him hit lefty exclusively. It may be simply signing a guy who hits lefties. Maybe there is a asset hidden in Tacoma or Jackson. But I would be frustrated, sans clear evidence that he can hit LHP, if we just roll Smoak out against 33% (or whatever the lefty percentage is) of the starting pitchers and say, "He's terrible, but good enough for now!" Poythress and Romero both have hit RHP way better than LHP in Tacoma this year. Tenbrink feasts on RHP, too/ Not so lefties. I don't know who the platoon guy is. But adding a 1B bat against LHP would certainly help us compete next year. And I think everybody is hoping/wishing/praying/demanding that we do just that.

More like Lyle Overbay with splits?

Overbay is worthless against lefties (.690 OPS career vs LHP, .820 vs righties) but I didn't use Overbay because Lyle hits lots of doubles giving him a 10.5% rate on extra-base-hits per AB.
The problem with judging Smoak for his (lack of) RH hitting prowess is that he hasn't hit much against em, and most players take a while to even out their splits. For his career, Justin is worse but not THAT much worse from the RH side, and that difference has purely come from this year. He was born a righty, he's not trying to convert over to that side. His BABIP is .345 (too high) from the left and .255 (too low) from the right. He'll even out. It won't pump up his numbers because his left-handed BIP regression will pull those numbers down accordingly, but I'm not sold that he's merely a platoon bat bases on 100 bad ABs this year.
But even if he were, like you said we could platoon him.
I wouldn't use Tenbrink or Poythress, though. Poythress has basically no platoon split over the last three years (.810 vs .795), and Tenbrink (a lefty) like you said hits righties but is abominable since 2011 against lefties (.566). And adding a righty just to hit lefties is fine - but he needs to be able to play more than first base.
Ramon Morla can hit just lefties very well (.890 OPS). I think he's only a platoon bat, honestly, and he can hold down 3B in a pinch to give Seager some days off too. He's only had a couple hundred ABs in the upper minors though - probably rushing him to rely on him to be one of the only righties in the lineup against LHP next year.
Getting some use out of Jesus Montero is tempting and he's only really had success against lefties, but he's had basically zero time gloving at 1B, so expecting him to be able to handle errant throws and random hops in 1/3 of our games seems like a disaster waiting to happen. The problem with a bad-glove 1B is that he drags the whole infield's defense down with him because he can't compensate for bad or rushed throws. If our right-handed platoon bat is only gonna be out at first base for 40 or 50 games, then I want the glove to be a plus not a minus.
But I'm sure there are some RH platoon hitters in AAA we can add from another team for one of our many relief arms. Righty 1B are downgraded anyway - righties with horrible platoon splits might as well start stocking shelves. Finding a right-handed 1B/3B for the bench seems like a decent solution to the "giving Seager a day off" problem as well as preparing in case Smoak really can't hit righties next year either.
~G

Yep congrats on the novel

Keep us .. um .. Posted as to when we can get it on Amazon!

Lack of doubles

It's a fascinating point and will cheerfully admit I hadn't noticed it, though it's a weird thing to overlook. :daps:
Now that you point it out, there are a lot of possible reasons, and it will be fun to figure out why. In the best case analysis, it is connected with his lack of PWR generally, and as he finds himself the PWR becomes the last thing to come around.
In the meantime it's nice to UNDERSTAND Justin Smoak where he is right now. Kind of weird, a guy with smoking line-drive singles, a lot of walks, and a presentable HR total without XBH.
..........
Still, 34 RBI and 43 R in 100 games. Thass' a prob-laim...

How soon we forget

I forgot to include Montero as a possible (natural, if he could field) 1B platoon. I've done so before. Now he is completely off my radar. Thanks for bringing him up.

My problem too.

"Still, 34 RBI and 43 R in 100 games. Thass' a prob-laim..."
This is what really bothers me about Smoak. Now perhaps it's just an aberration that will come more into line with norms, but for a guy to have 20+ home run power along with a pathetic RBI total, it bears watching, uh, CLOSELY. Of course we can take Gordon's advice and just treat him with regard to the lineup as if he's a slow-footed OBP infielder with a little bit of pop. But we've all seen guys who play for losers their whole career, hit majestic home runs, but don't have much overall positive impact on their team. I'm not a big fan of 20 HR 50 RBI players. They make me think of Dave Kingman, who had much, much more power than Smoak, but no winning team ever moved to add him to their roster. He might win a game here or there with a home run, but most of his home runs came at meaningless times. Or at least that's the way I remember Kingman. Despite assertions to the contrary, there's some guys who are failure in key situations more often than their batting numbers might suggest. I'm not pronouncing this the case with Smoak, but his performance in this area has kept me in the "prove it to me" camp.