Q. Not sure whether to compare Morneau and Smoak; Morneau was always a better contact hitter.
A. We weren't discussing templates. We were discussing industrywide age-arc patterns.
The BaseballHQ "ARod 10-Step Path To Stardom" transcends player profiles. But then, you knew that; you're a roto Tyrannosaurus. :- )
Players of all types bang around, up and down, for years before hitting "Age 26 With Experience" and becoming All-Stars.
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Q. Are they similar templates, though?
A. Oh yeah. If we were discussing templates, I'd have Morneau, Smoak, and Teixeira in similar baskets.
A little ironic that, earlier, my Tex-Smoak comp was busted because Smoak is a better hitter, a guy who uses the whole park. :- ) Shortly after, the American League started shifting Justin Smoak the same way it does Tex...
It says here that Smoak's got it all, the ability to crush the ball the other way, the ability to swat it out to RF with ease, the ability to shorten up and knock in the two-out RBI, the ability to draw lotsa walks.
He doesn't quite got it together yet, but...
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Remember, now, it's not like we have 300 player templates, kiddies. This ain't the eye shadow counter at Nordstrom's. There are something like a dozen basic hitting templates.
This happens all the time, you compare Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr., and some amigo goes "hey, but Mays stole more bases" ... siiiiggggghhhhhhhh.
That's what James did with comps: he'd say "Jose Canseco is the modern Reggie Jackson, add a little (era-adjusted) contact ability."
If you want to say, "Justin Smoak is Justin Morneau, if Morneau worked deeper counts," fine... but!
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Q. Did the young Justin Morneau make better contact than Smoak does now?
A. He didn't, no, not adjusting for age and level.
Do sympathize about yer watching the last month. It's been one long owie for Smoak, going up to the plate "on tilt" and lunging out in front of offspeed stuff.
Sabermetrically, though: what's this about a big difference in "contact ability" between the young Morneau, and Smoak now? Morneau averages 100 K's and 65 BB's for his career, which includes his mature years. Smoak is off to a 109 and 52 start as a young player.
Smoak was 131:119 in 170 games being rushed through the minors; Morneau was 322:195 in 491 games being soft-pedaled through the minors.
Smoak lets the count get a little deeper, creating a few more K's ... but far more BB's. You don't grade a guy down on contact ability just because his EYE goes from 0.6 to 0.9. A hitter waits for 3-and-2 counts, he's going to fan more despite being able to cover a pitch just as well.
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Here, let's look at their SwStr%'s by age:
And here are Smoak's:
As you can clearly see, it is the recent Morneau that is impressed on the retina. Here are the contact rates:
Versus Smoak's:
Smoak makes as much or more contact than the young Morneau did, but he is better at telling a ball from a strike. So he's got a better EYE, albeit of course with more strikeouts.
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Q. Dr's Diagnosis?
A. All things considered, Top Pick In the Draft* pheenom Justin Smoak is a more talented player than Third Rounder Justin Morneau was.
When Morneau went through some growing pains, people bailed on him as well, but with a player as hyped as Smoak, there's a tendency to subconsciously get bitter when the first year doesn't produce miracles. Let's say that Smoak were a 5th-rounder, having shown the 160-OPS+ flashes that he has?
Hey, Kyle Seager came up, had one weeeeeek here and now the 5-year cyber plans all have somebody else at third base. :- ) Think about it!
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Dr's prognosis: Justin Smoak is a franchise player. But not all young players jell in the first week. Steady hand at the tiller, mates. You wanted a BB/HR lefty blue chipper for Safeco, din'cha?
Did you know that Edgar Martinez' first crack at the bigs, he had a 74 OPS+ at age 26? Mo Vaughn had terrible years at ages 23 and 24, and then starting at age 25, clanged the MVP bell the next six years' worth of voting.
Think about the Justin Morneaus, Kevin Youkilises, Edgars, Barry Bondses, and Mo Vaughns, and chill. Smoak is almost there, babe.
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Cheerio,
Dr D
Contact and power. Morneau has settled around at an 81% CT rate and hit for more power in the minors and both his freshman and sophmore years. Ran an 18+ HR/FB% his first two years whereas Smoak is at 11+%.
Morneau's Junior season was zapped because he dealt with illnesses that offseason that kept him from preparing and working out for the 2005 season.
Morneau has never truly struggled either than the first 115 PAs of his career.
Four years from now, Smoak is an MVP and Guillermo Pimentel is struggling... we'll be saying that Smoak's only bad year was when his father died, right?
We don't get to edit one of the player's failures and not the other's, when we're comparing the two.
Still, you predict Smoak to have a ho-hum career, no problemo - you're on the record champ. That certainly is one possible scenario, as it was for Morneau following his second year.
even that in four years from now Ike Davis (i.e. my 1B choice from the 2008 draft class, not Hosmer, Alonso or Smoak) will be the new Keith Hernandez. Predictions in our case do not cost anything.
Morneau wasn't physically right that season so it isn't exactly the same. He was a MOTO hitter after 110 PAs. Certainly Smoak is dealing with personal grief this year..
I don't think Smoak will be poor, just short of stardom. I think he has mid 800s OPS upside like pre-breakout Morneau. There is 3+ WAR upside there although low 800s is probably more likely.
That may be a mid-line projection, but that would not be his upside. His upside is being one of the best hitters in the game, and I don't see why that doesn't have a high chance of occuring. The first month of the year he was hitting .284/.393/.527 which is an OPS of .920. I don't think that was flukey and I can easily seem him doing that again, he is certainly capable of doing that in his prime which is still years away. He should hit at least .270 the next couple of years which would easily put him at that mid-.800 OPS and that means when he hits his peak he would exceed .900 for sure.
n/m ;- )
Theres a few reasons I'm not quite as high on Smoak's upside as others. For one his swing is not particularly quick. Granted hes made some neccesarry adjustments to compensate such as fixing the the loading flaw and hitting the other way (though hes pulling more recently).
Second his pitch recognition skills (or eye) are merely average. He is patient, but he is patient in that he avoids hitting both strikes and balls and actually is slightly below-average in O-Swing%. Combine with his contact ability being below-average and his "hit" tool is slightly below-average IMO. He will make up his OBP with BBs, but it hurts his SLG potential. Which bring you to his power, which is very good but not elite. He doesn't have Branyan-type lighttower pop. His ceiling is closer to the high 20s unless he runs very high FB-rates (which he never really has and would further damage his hit ability).
Overall its a toolset that suggest a good hitter in the making, but not an elite one.
I get the recognition skills one, I guess. He can be very choosy, but I wouldn't call his hit-tool "below average."
And power-wise...his swing looks a LOT like Chipper's swing, with that lazy slow hack that hits the ball off the top of the bat and doesn't look squared up...until it goes 12 rows back in CF.
He doesn't have Chipper's eye, but it's no crime not to be a first-ballot HOFer.
I think his power's gonna be more durable than you think, taro. I still have him pegged for an .850ish OPS but I don't think that's maxing out his potential. If he can consistently drive the ball from both sides of the plate (something he did in college but hasn't mastered in the bigs yet) then his .280/.400/.550 years are gonna look a lot like an elite hitter.
He's not gonna hit .200 against righties going forward. He's not gonna continue to have more power at the Safe than on the road.
I just hope he doesn't have to keep being the cog that drives the entire offense (.975 OPS in wins, .500 in losses). He hits a huge slump, we set the record for the longest losing streak in club history. Not fair to a guy who's basically a rookie, not at all. So I'm waiting for the reset button to better judge him going forward, because the guy we saw in April and the first part of May is the guy I expect to see in 2012 and 2013.
Hopefully he can wrap up the year with another month or two like April and get his feet back under him before the offseason.
~G