Smoak’s Struggles
Dave · July 30, 2010 at 12:24 pm · Filed Under Mariners
My piece for the Brock and Salk blog this week deals with Justin Smoak’s struggles and what they mean. Hint – not much.
My piece for the Brock and Salk blog this week deals with Justin Smoak’s struggles and what they mean. Hint – not much.
In 1994, when I was 13 years old, I remember a prospect who was heralded as the second coming of Christ making his major league debut. That individual was Alex Rodriguez. So what were AROD’s first year stats?
In 2004, AROD had 54 at-bats with a line of .204/.241/.204
OPS – .405
In 2005, AROD had 142 at-bats with a line of .232/.264/.408
OPS – .672
In 1996, he went on to have an OPS of 1.032 in 600 at-bats. I totally agree Dave, do not read into Smoak’s line. I think he is pressing quite a bit, as is evident by lack of walks. I also believe, and I know many think it does not exist, that the lack of protection in the order and quality offensive players hurts Smoak as well.
It’s usually always tough for a prospect, even the best of the best, to put up big numbers in their first and second years. Even those who have great first years will usually see a sophomore slump or at least regress. I believe Smoak will pick it up a bit this year, but if he doesn’t, a fresh start next year will help significantly.
Rodriguez was young enough to affect the validity of the comparison. Taking into account that Dave’s examples come from an era of higher offensive levels than we presently have, I’d offer another example to balance that out: Mike Schmidt.
Basically 23-year old players don’t have much success in the majors. The Mariners fans are spoiled by Griffey Jr and A-Rod (who’s an exception not an example) who were both stars at 23. But those are Top 50 all-time players.
At age 23, Edgar had an OPS of 770… at double-A. If Smoak stays ahead of the Edgar curve I’ll take it.
Mike Schmidt is the best example I’ve seen so far. Smoak already has 340 ABs. Thats twice as many as 4 of the 5 players Dave Mentioned. Its also more ABs then Saunders.
Aren’t you guys getting WAY ahead of yourselves? Comparing Smoak to a HOF like Schmidt and a future HOF like AROD is just plain silly. The bias here related to this guy makes me sick. I don’t hold his stats in this year against him, nor am I going to annoint him to the HOF.
Of course this is statistically insignificant, but one at bat by Smoak stands out for me. At the end of it came one of his home runs for the Mariners.
My wife and I were watching him struggle with off speed and inside pitches. But at one point, and both of us noticed this simultaneously, he fathomed the pattern, waited for the off speed pitch, and crushed it.
Neither of us thought it was just some random hard swing that happened to connect.
abcd, nobody said smoak is a HOF’er. They just said these other guys couldn’t hit their first year, but later they did. It’s possible (perhaps a tiny bit likely) that he’ll pick things up.
Do you need us to balance things out a bit by listing players who couldn’t hit their first year, then moved on to average careers?
I don’t think that the point is that Smoak is the next A-Rod. That’s basically impossible, given that Smoak will play first base and not be as good as Albert Pujols. I think the point is that Smoak’s disappointing rookie season does not mean we should write him off. Good players often stink their first trip through the majors and writing them off is silly. Smoak will probably be an .830 OPS guy some day, and might be a .900 OPS guy. He’s very unlikely to be a hall of famer, and no one here thinks that he is. (Reasonable people know that Heyward and Strasburg are still unlikely to be HOFers someday.)
I’m confused. I thought the point of sabremetrics was to look at the numbers, not at intangibles such as potential.
And Rob Johnson didn’t hit in his first or second years either.
And not in the minors either.
Methinks you missed that little bit of information.
Rick L, you are indeed confused. The point of sabermetrics (one point, anyway) is to look at the numbers in order to evaluate potential.
He’s been with the team about one month. He’s 23 years old. And the online herd is ready to declare him a bust.
Folks, 2009 was a fluke of good luck and players like Griffey and A-Rod aren’t a dime a dozen. Those are once in a generation players. Give the kid a full season to develop as a batter with this team, meaning next year. Let’s see what he can do with a full off season behind him and a full season as a starter.
This is the first baseman for the team for now. They aren’t going to spend the money on a veteran free agent and they don’t have somebody waiting in the wings on the farm to step into the position, yet.
I think it is silly to be talking about him as a bust already. He was a top 5-10 prospect in all of the minors last year and pretty much thought of as untouchable from the Rangers. I was shocked to see that we were able to get him for a few months rental for Lee. He should get as many AB’s as possible in this wasted year and we will reap the benefits for years to come. Hopefully they get someone to take Chone and Branyan. No reason for those guys to even be on the team.
SMOAK looks over-matched. Perhaps he is.
Two years ago, he was in low a ball. He began last year in AA, and was soon promoted to AAA.
He seems to have been placed on a very fast track, but still needs the seasoning that only the minor leagues can give him.
He needs to play every day, and doesn’t deserve to do it here.