Very thought provoking article.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/red-sox-turn-wade-miley-into-potential-bullpen-ace/
And then there’s Smith. As I’ve thought about this trade, I’ve thought about the potential difference between what Smith’s been, and what he could become. I have to figure
Jerry Dipoto doesn’t quite buy Smith’s numbers as indicators of his ability going forward. I personally like Smith a lot, but I could understand why someone might suggest we’ve already seen him at his best.
Simply understood, Smith is a sinker-slider righty reliever. There are plenty of those, and while there are few of those with Smith’s numbers, he doesn’t throw with eye-popping velocity. As a sinker-slider righty, he’s someone from whom you’d expect a pretty big platoon split. It hasn’t materialized yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. There were times Smith was protected from facing many lefties, and that wouldn’t be the case if he became a regular high-leverage reliever. If lefties became a problem, then Smith would look an awful lot less like a ninth-inning option.
Then there’s the matter of Smith throwing sliders with almost half his pitches. In any projection, you have to try to account for individual injury risk, and though doing that well is obviously a challenge, Smith might well be at greater risk. Dipoto might not love Smith’s odds of remaining healthy, and it’s worth noting he had a small velocity decline toward the end of last season. Definitely might’ve been nothing. And maybe his arm is up to the challenge of pitching, as much as anyone else’s is. I’m just trying to present what might be the argument.
As I think about it, I still like this more for the Red Sox. I don’t love Miley’s command, so I don’t love his chances of taking a step forward. As a mid-rotation pitcher, he’s boring, and only modestly valuable. Smith has already resembled an elite reliever, and he’ll cost nothing for years. We don’t understand reliever projections and injuries nearly well enough to say that Smith has peaked. I like what Boston did. I just
see why this is also what Seattle did. It’s not insane, and it’s not unjustifiable. It’s just questionable. Unusually so, these days.
Smith is the kind of guy Dave Dombrowski could’ve gone out to get, if he didn’t want to pay the premium price for someone more established. Smith is a guy some teams might’ve considered as a quieter alternative to
Craig Kimbrel. Dombrowski just went ahead and got them both.
The comparison I have stuck in my head is between Smith and
Ken Giles. They’re both young, with some ninth-inning experience. They both have five remaining years of team control. They’ve both struck out a third of opposing hitters. They’ve both allowed a similarly-low batting line. Giles throws a harder fastball, but on performance alone, they’re extremely similar. Teams have called the Phillies on Giles, and they’ve talked about upper-class prospects. The Phillies were said to have asked the Astros about
Lance McCullers and
Vincent Velasquez. The Phillies want a haul for Giles. The Red Sox got Smith for Wade Miley.