I would not have thought of that comp, Doc. I would have missed it...yet Smyly is exactly what we hoped Hultzen would be. Great stuff.
I was hoping for the 3 years of Odorizzi, the durability and the extra year. But, I must say, I'm learning to like Smyly's fastball hop. That'll do.. And I've begun to wonder if Dipoto had all these trades nearly locked in, or in some advanced stage of discussion, when he went out and got Gallardo's reliable 180 innings?
Our 1-4's have shown some tweakiness over the last couple of years, after all. So he found a buyer for Smith, who he didn't have a COF spot for, as things were developing, and he had to get 30 starts because the target P he was going to acquire might not get to that number.
Rumors are that we had long been talking about Mallex Smith, so I wonder if this was a backwards plotted course, or an algebraic equation with several unknowns but the answer was Mallex Smith = Smyly.
And Dipoto MUST think Karns isn't what he traded for (or now wanted), otherwise it looks like we could have had M. Smith AND Karns, rather than Dyson and Smyly.
Go team.