One week after a big National League prospect was called up unexpectedly early, the same exact thing happened in the American League. After 48 unproductive 2010 AB, the Rangers decided enough was enough was Chris Davis and decided to call up Justin Smoak.
Smoak is a blue chip prospect they everybody's high on. Baseball Prospectus compared him to Mark Teixeira and ranked him #16 in their 2010 annual. John Sickels gave Smoak an A- and while Sickels backed off a little from the Teixeira comparisons in his 2010 book, is still high on Smoak.
I agree that Smoak is going to be a good baseball player...and will probably be a better player than Davis. However, I'm far more cautious about how good I think Smoak might be. I see two problems in Smoak's profile:
1) He hasn't figured out left-handed pitching. Smoak mashed against lefties in college, but last year had a 301/325/626 slash line against them in the minors. Granted, the sample size is small, but it doesn't give me confidence that he's going to instantly figure it out in the bigs.
2) He's a groundball hitter. Smoak had a 1.54 G/F ratio last year. That's not radical, but it doesn't speak to a hitter who is going to loft a lot of balls and suddenly pop a lot of HR. I'd expect something more like 15-20 and maybe 20-25 at his peak than 30+.
This isn't to knock Smoak as a prospect. I think he's a very good one and will have a long and productive career. What I don't foresee is a Mark Teixeira/Prince Fielder/Ryan Howard career path. Smoak will be very good - and maybe even have a great season or two - but I don't see an elite player here, at least not based on his current statistical profile.
My bid is a conservative $23. That won't get him, and I think you'll have to go to at least $45 if you want the pleasure. He's a highly regarded rookie, and owners in leagues with no farm systems will have their eyes on him.
No comments:
Post a Comment