Apparently, they didn't give him enough at bats in Seattle. The money quote:
"Smoak was never really given the opportunity to be "The Guy" in the Emerald City. In his four full seasons with the Mariners, he played in 466 of a possible 648 games."
No kidding. Seattle sinks 1900 first base at bats into the man and gets nothing but a long string of warning track shots, GIDP, .350 slugging percentage and other atrocities, and its the Mariners fault? Smoak should have said: I'm greatful for the Jays and the Mariners for sticking with me and keeping me in the League for all of these years while I got my [stuff] together. First base is very competitive and a lot of people have had faith in me for a long time."In 2016, Smoak was battling a knee injury all year, and he had Smoakish .650ish results.
I think that the real reason that Smoak is doing well is he finally figured out how to bat right handed. His career platoon from the right side is a .651 OPS and most of that is buoyed by recent times. The first time that Smoak showed any promise as a RHB was in 2015, in his age 28 season.
| .256 | .275 | .564 | .839 |
This year, Smoak's RH platoon split is
| .384 | .439 | .644 | 1.083 |
I think that it took 2000 AB's to fix Smoak's busted RH swing. I also think that Smoak needed to either grow some man muscles, as Lloyd McClendon said, or hit the ball flusher, or both. Maybe Smoak started lifting weights like it was his job and that's why he's doing better. I also also think that Smoak would have "felt comfortable" in Seattle if he slugged .450 some time or another.
Because of Smoak and Kendrys Morales, I've soured on all switch hitters ever. Its too hard to un slump two swings.
Good for Smoak though.