Deep League Waiver Wire – Justin Smoak

It really pains me to do this but today I’m going to tell you about Justin Smoak. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. A former top prospect, Smoak is now 30 years old and playing in his third season in Toronto. He’s been the subject of dozens of articles over the years with largely the same outcome, disappointment. In over 2600 Major League plate appearances, Smoak owns a career wRC+ of 95. He’s been a serviceable major leaguer who’s never fully lived up to his tantalizing potential. So, it’s only in the context of a Deep League Waiver Wire piece that I’d continue beating this dead horse after so many years. 

Through 90 plate appearances in 2017, Smoak is slashing .271/.300/.482 with 4 homers, 12 RBIs, and a .212 isolated slugging percentage. After having averaged around 330 plate appearances over the last two seasons in Toronto, Smoak is now on pace for 540. His strong start to the season, one of the lone offensive bright spots for a Jays team that ranks 27^th in wOBA, has earned him additional playing time. Whether that tells us more about Smoak or the Toronto Blue Jays depends on who you ask but there are some developments about the former worth noting.

Back in March, Jeff Sullivan pulled some comps based on exit velocity, launch angle, and contact percentage. If not for his disappointing wRC+, Smoak would have been hard to find amongst a veritable list of studs and prolific power hitters. Still, we’ve seen promising glimpses of Smoak in the past only to watch him revert and disappoint given our perhaps unfair expectations.  So, given his history, one could be forgiven for betting on Pumpkin in the famed New and Improved Justin Smoak vs. Pumpkin bout, or as it’s known on Pay Per View, Disorder Above the Border.

Small sample sizes acknowledged, so far this season, Smoak’s batted ball data retains promise. He ranks in the 77^th percentile in Average Exit Velocity, 72^nd percentile in Average Fly Ball and Line Drive Exit Velocity, 88^th percentile in Average Batted Ball Distance, and 90^th percentile in Barrels per Plate Appearance. And while in some areas that represents a drop-off from his 2016, in others he’s improved. Either way, Smoak still appears to be making hard contact.

More encouragingly, in avoiding ground balls, he’s also pairing that hard contact with one of the highest vertical launch angles in the league (though that appears in large part due to an elevated true pop-up rate as well). Still, Smoak is avoiding grounders and despite his pop-up proclivities thus far in 2017, appears to be elevating balls with authority.

But strong contact and forceful exit velocities are nothing new. After all, Smoak did this last year, arguably better. The other element of Smoak’s 2016 that Sullivan analyzed was his contact percentage and what has changed early on into this season is the quantity of his contact. Smoak’s whiff rate currently sits at 9%, which, if the season ended today, would mark a career best. While that isn’t atrocious for a hitter who has flashed some power in the past, Smoak was 6% worse than average last season at putting bat to ball. Through 90 plate appearances in 2017, Smoak is three and a half points better than average and his 93.9% zone-contact rate ranks 8^th in baseball. No doubt this newfound affinity for you know, hitting baseballs has helped Smoak strike out at the lowest rate of his career.

Now, it’s not all candy, fireworks, and puppy dogs. He’s also chasing way too frequently, a disappointment coming from a player who’s known for taking a pitch. For all the aspects of Smoak’s game that have let us down over the years, his career walk rate, sitting above 10%, has been one of his most dependable strengths. For that reason, I’m not worried; I believe he’ll rediscover the strike zone, particularly because it appears to be an easy fix. Looking at his heatmaps, Smoak is chasing balls in the dirt against righties and seemingly nowhere else.

That’s his swing percentage against righties in 2016 on the left and against them in 2017 on the right. A deeper dive reveals that almost all of those pitches below the zone in red are breaking balls so laying off the junk from right handers would go a long way in improving his chase rate and thus his walk totals. As someone who’s exhibited this ability in the past, this seems fixable.

So, strong contact and decent launch angles paired with regular playing time and the highest contact rate of Smoak’s career makes him a good deep league option for those looking to fill a corner infield need. We have to acknowledge the possibility, and perhaps likelihood, when talking about Justin Smoak that we’ll end up disappointed. I’m not going to argue otherwise. But there’s also cause to be cautiously optimistic here for the reasons I’ve alluded to. For the price it takes to acquire him, I’ll roll the dice one more time.