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Reaching into a bag to pick a loooonnnnng list of linx:
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Drew Smyly a massive get for M's. Solid but unlucky in 16; hitters batted unrealistically high .331 AVG-.379 SLG on ground. 3S w/upside. - Tony Blengino
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Blengino's usual "quality of ball off the bat" camera angle jibes with mine. These particular two days, I'm not in "prove it in a court of law" mode, just baseball chat mode. Just watching him pitch, it seems to me there is all kinds of room for him to throw a 9.0 / 2.5 / 0.7 season, doing nothing other than getting some luck. Which was his slash line in 2012-13 for the Tigers, by the way.
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Many, many teams wanted Smyly - USSM
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Well, sure. The industry consensus, it says here, was as above. A 2-3 starter for a playoff team, who has ran into some funky stuff that has made him look like he's more towards average. Here is a Rays broadcaster speaking to the same effect, that Everybody Likes Drew.
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LINK - Drew Smyly's Trouble With the Homer - Lookout Landing
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That previous link, Jake Mailhot accuses Smyly's changeup of leading to a bunch of those homers. Dr. D can certainly believe that. Which leaves us with: can he afford to twiddle with the cut fastball as his 3rd pitch to right hand batters?
Sure he can. Mailhot's article also points out the fact that Smyly had been hanging the cutter Farquhar-style. All he's got to do is move it in tighter on RH's. Or, once in a while, back door it. A cutter is designed for weak contact, and what we mean by "weak" in the majors is an 80 MPH fliner that has zero to SUB-zero chance of hitting the ground anywhere near Guillermo Heredia. Locating the cutter better, for the 1-2 times an inning he throws it, that's not rocket science. Very doable fix.
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=== TEMPLATE ===
It's hard to think of a comp here. David Price also jelled into this 1+ BB rate, right about Smyly's age now... Price's fastball was so lively, and so well-located, that he could work through a lineup with nothing else. a la Curt Schilling. This leads to miniscule walk rates because, Virginia, even major league pitchers have a harder time spinning a ball for a strike than they do just throwing a strike.
So, overhand lefties who worked the strike zone up and down ... hmmmm... Smyly has become a bit of an odd duck. But check out his run values on fastballs:
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| Season |
Runs gained per 100 such pitches |
| 2012 |
+0.15 |
| 2013 |
+1.20 |
| 2014 |
+0.22 |
| 2015 |
+0.95 |
| 2016 |
+0.83 |
| TOTAL |
+0.62 |
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Find some other pitchers who keep a healthy plus value on their fastballs EVERY year, and I'll show you a list full of pitchers who make nice money. But it ain't like Smyly has only one pitch. He's got a true drop curve ball and it "whipsaws" the first half of its flight against Smyly's fastball. ... those cutters and changes are (or should be) "show me" pitches.
Point is, if you don't like starters who can work the fastball up and down, on a game-in game-out basis, --- > you are obviously not a catcher.
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=== LET'S! GO TO! the VIDEO! TAPE! ===
Here is an out-and-over fastball that ended a long winning streak for Smyly. If you're wondering where the big hits come from, here they are. Just getting too much of the plate. You take the good with the bad; that's the kind of pitcher Smyly is, as Jeff Fassero and Freddy Garcia were. A pitcher like this gets on a roll when he adds that extra bit of "pitchability," when he takes just a bit less of the plate in certain situations.
Easy to second-guess but it says here that's what you'll see in Safeco. There are worse things than losing because you refused to beat yourself.
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Here is an August win in Texas:
1) An out-and-over FB just like the one to Hanley, but ... just that bit farther outside :- )
2) Up the ladder Iwakuma-style, one baseball's width over the zone
3) Hellacious 76 MPH curve rolls off the table for garbage swing
4) Up over the zone again
5) Pure challenge FB plays up because of earlier sequencing
6) LOL
7) Slurve low-away blows down a lefty (LH batting an empty .202 against Smyly lifetime)
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Here is a big win against Houston.
1) Tantalizing change curve
2) High (read: STRIKEOUT) fastball
3) Fastball located in on hands
4) Challenge fastball vs Gattis
5) Barry Zito curve ball with two strikes for frozen popsicle K (tear-jerking arm action!)
6) Fastball on the black, batter wayyyyy late on 91 MPH
7) Fastball on the black
8) Fastball just enough in on the hands
9) Challenge FB for a patented Smyly(TM) infield pop the wrong way
As always, it's the threat of the stinging little short-arm curve ball that keeps batters "in between." I flat-out enjoy watching this kind of game. Death by 1,000 paper cuts.
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Oh yeah! Now I remember the comps I was thinking of. A healthy Danny Hultzen would have pitched exactly this way. Cole Hamels. Take away a notch worth of offspeed game and that's the style Drew Smyly uses. Smyly's 12-6 change curve is certainly a strikeout pitch, but it's not like he keeps batters on a string the way Hamels does.
Still, that's what those lefties do. The work the zone with razor-sharp little fastballs. We could say "they just PITCH" but there is a moratorium on the trite and feeb at SSI.
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Put it to you one more way. You said you were sick of watching Nate Karns throw 1-2 fastballs two feet outside?
:- )
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=== UPSIDE, DOWNSIDE ===
DOWN: He gets hurt.
Other than that, I don't see any way for Smyly to fail to contribute. Last year was about as rough as it's going to get for him, which ain't very rough.
UP: 9 K's, 2 BB's, 1.0 HR's, and a feature pitcher in the top of the rotation.
Smiling,
Dr D
