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Age 26 with experience?
Justin Smoak Targets the AL for Termination
Choo, Butler, Konerko, Gordon, Swisher the targets now
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Sgt. Wedge, Dept.
Justin Smoak with another big day on Sunday. He:
- Took a 6"-outside changeup into LF for a single on a two-strike count
- Fouled back a first-pitch fastball, and then took four tempting pitches for a walk
- Rifled a 94 MPH fastball into his right-center power alley for a long double
Here's the walk.
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On the first pitch he was "ready to hit," and then despite being behind in the count 0-1 he laid off the kind of pitches that would have eaten him alive last year.
Eric Wedge said a few days ago that Brad Miller's best game to date was one in which he was 0-for-2 ... but Miller walked twice, managed the strike zone, planned his attacks on the pitcher and "gave pro at-bats." So: note that the walk was probably the at-bat that Wedge liked best on the evening.
Smoak is accomplishing all of the following. He is:
- Pulling 94 fastballs to his power alley
- Staying back on offspeed and squaring it up the other way (ergo, not "in between" any more)
- As always, very capable of telling a ball from a strike (his BB totals are perfectly legit)
- Now driving HR's over the CF fence
But you can see the 4-point bullet list above, right? That's not a BABIP fluke. He's not hitting in good luck; he is winning the fights against enemy pitchers, he deserves to beat them, and he is beating them. If you can't see the difference between "hits falling in" and a guy who is kicking keister out there, you better ax somebody.
A few plate discipline stats:
| Stat | AL Avg | Smoak, 2013 | Smoak, last 30 days |
| Fishing (lower is better) | 29% | 25% | 25% |
| Swing at Strike (higher is better) | 64 | 67 | 74 (!) |
| Swing + Miss | 10 | 9 | 8 |
| Swing % | 45 | 43 | 45 |
He swung and missed 11% of the time in 2011 ... for Smoak to be letting the bat fly now the way he is, and for his SwStr% to be DROPPING on a series-to-series basis, that is serious stuff. Sabermetrically, it looks like this is it. He is taking vicious cuts at the ball WHILE squaring the ball up at phenomenal rates by his own standards.
Think you can take it from there? Smoak himself is giddy about his new skills.
(It's looked like "this is it" before, for him. That's the way that sports plateaus work, though.)
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As far as the raw power is concerned, we have talked about (and you have seen) the batted ball velocity. He hit that HR over the CF wall this week and was positively giddy on the postgame over his newfound power ... trying not to gloat, and confused on camera, he said "I put a good swing on it and was able to ... sneak it over the center field wall." That's actually what he said. You know, like a young guy in confusion saying "I was able to sneak it up there off the toothbrush lights... at Qwest."
"On Base Percentage Is the Single Most Important Stat In Baseball" - James
Smoak is now on pace for 83 walks per full season ... to give a sense of proportion, 9 players in both leagues had more than that in 2012. Prince Fielder, David Wright, Edwin Encarnacion and Nick Swisher were the guys who were around 80 in the walk column.
In fact, Nick Swisher hit exactly .272 last year, right where Smoak is now, and had 77 walks ... that gave Swisher a .362 OBP, compared to Smoak's .372 as we speak. In fact, Smoak's current OBP of .372 was around #20 in major league baseball last year ... comparable OBP's: Shin-Soo Choo, Billy Butler, Paul Konerko, Alex Gordon, Nick Swisher.
We say "current" because Smoak was struggling earlier in the year, as he transitioned into his new swing. As of April 27, he was hitting only .211/.311/.267.
Since April 28, he's hitting 300/400/500 ... actually a little over that in each category.
Since he came back off the DL in early June, he's .320/.400/.587.
...........
But. The point is. Choo, Butler, Konerko, Gordon, Swisher ... if I'm Justin Smoak, that is my goal now, and it is my expectation. It is what I would give myself the responsibility to accomplish.
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Comments
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More usual is something like Pena's 110 to 130-140 (which occurred later than 26, of course).
Probably there would be a fair amount of big players who leaped from "average/below-average" to "well above average" in the course of a month or two ... but the number would be reduced because few would get the chance.
Smoak's been given a whale of a lot of tolerance by the M's. Perhaps it is about to pay off, and if so, they'll be in no mood to let him go. Does he have a different agent than Ackley and Franklin?
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I thought he was with Boras like Ackley and Franklin, but so far it looks like he and our Seager are non-Boras clients. Gonna wanna look into contracts for both if this keeps up, complete with club option years into FA. Moreso for Seager right now, but I'd kick the tires on Smoak after the season if he keeps this up.
Keep in mind: yes, Smoak has been hot the last month. You know who else has been? EVERYONE.
Entire Mariners lineup, last 28 days: .262/.332/.465/.797.
OPS numbers, last 28 days go: Rauuuul at 1.145, Smoak at 1.018, Seager at .992, Morales at .871, Saunders at .825, Miller at .717 and Franklin at .696.
Mike Zunino is at .575 and Ackley is still drowning in an inflatable kiddie pool at .544. Other than those two, every position is plus positionally over the last month, with several guys crushing it.
Maybe that's just the synergy of having a 2B who can hit HRs and a SS who can leg out triples and get on base taking pressure off the rest of the lineup. Maybe it's just the maturation of guys like Smoak, and Saunders shaking off a bad stretch.
But this finally looks like a real offense. You can survive bad O from a catcher and a center fielder if you're getting corner production to make it up. We finally are, which is why we're a .500 ballclub over that timeframe. It's the pitching that'll have to take the next step and start getting quality starts chained together out there, but really - in the last 365 days we're 81-86.
Isn't that basically where we wanted to be? .500 and about to deploy some serious pitching instead of #5 retreads? It's too bad about that Cleveland/Anaheim section of the road trip, because without that soul-crushing weirdness we'd be in a very interesting position. But that doesn't mean it can't still be a fun second half.
Drop Taijuan off in Safeco after the ASB, find out what he and E-Ram can add to the Two Headed Death of Felix and Iwakuma, and see if that suddenly-productive O can finally help get us on a winning streak.
~G
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Franklin was OPSing .823 when he hurt his knee. Now OPSing .788 after going 3 for 22 since. Add in Morse (.767) returning and Bay (.724) becoming the 5th OF instead of Endy Chavez (.650) (wish we could get him through waivers, though) and it's looking good. Now if Guti came back and Ackley went back down to Tacoma to continue to fix things, and IF Guti got back on his .874 OPS track --WOW!
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This is pretty much what I was hoping for except I thought the young pitching would establish first with bats coming around now. With the offense going now could be perfect timing to add a couple young starters. I'm a lot more confident that one of them struggling in an inning doesn't mean we're out of the game. This offense can get back in it and if those things do happen it should give those pitchers more confidence.
mlbtraderumors tracks agents. They have Franklin with Sportsmeter LLC, Zunino with Jet Sports (also Raben), Walker as the lone Reynolds Sports guy on the M's, Petit/Miller with SFX, Seager and Peguero with Proformance, Guti/Furbush/Felix with Octagon, Mike Saunders/Luetge/Maurer/Pryor with Frye McCann Sports, Peterson at Excel Sports, Hultzen and Bay with CAA Sports, Triunfel/Perez/Ackley/Morales with Boras, Morse/Montero/Ibanez/Harang/Kinney/Capps with ACES and Smoak as the only Mariner with the Bledsoe Brothers.
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He's covering CF quite well, and he's hitting the ball with some authority. I'm ok with leaving him there the rest of the season, although Gutierrez would be a nice bat to have against left handers.
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There are 22 games - 3 HOU (.351); 3 CLE (.537); 4 MIN (.424); 3 BOS (.598); 3 BAL (.552); 3 TOR (.479); 3 MIL (.404). Thirteen of these are at home. Five starts by Saunders, Five by Kuma. and Four by Felix, with several off days to let Felix get another start in the period.
Going 16-6 (.730) in that stretch would put us above .500 with 45 games left in the season. Alternatively, going 38-29 (.567) over the rest of the season gets us to .500. Either way you look at it, short winning stretch or steady gain, it's very plausible to finish at or slightly above .500 with the way the Ms have been hitting IF the pitching comes around.