2017 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Drew Smyly

Drew Smyly

27 years old

Bats/Throws: L/L

Height/Weight: 6’3”, 195 lbs

Position: Starting Pitcher

THE NUMBERS

Smyly was dealt from the Rays to the Mariners in early January.

Mariners acquired LHP Drew Smyly from the Rays for OF Mallex Smith, INF Carlos Vargas, and LHP Ryan Yarbrough.

He avoided arbitration by agreeing to a 1-year deal with the Mariners.

THE SKILLS

As you can see in the Draft Guide, Smyly shows up in a lot of good places, especially in Pitching Targets to 

Know where he’s listed as a player you want to have on your roster in 2017.

Let’s talk homers, the biggest impediment on the field to success for Smyly.

Last year Smyly allowed 32 homers, the fourth highest mark in baseball. Of those homers...

Amongst the 172 pitchers who allowed at least 12 homers last season last season Smyly was 104^th with an average distance on the homers he allowed of 398.6 feet, so it’s not like batters were continually mashing balls a tremendous distance.

Six were “No Doubters,” the fifth highest mark in baseball.

Eight were “Just Enoughs,” the sixth highest mark in baseball.

Add those two up and you note that with just a leveling out of the “Just Enoughs” that Smyly could easily see a homer reduction in ’18.

*To see what those categories refer to see All About the Home Run.

Smyly allowed those 32 homers in 175.1 innings. The result was a 1.64 HR/9 mark, the highest of his career. It was also the fourth highest in baseball. He also posted a mark of 1.49 in 2015 meaning that amongst pitchers who have thrown at least 200-innings the past two seasons his 1.60 HR/9 mark is 7^th worst in baseball. Still, Smyly owns a 1.22 HR/9 mark for his career, a poor number in its own right but still way superior to the levels we’ve seen from him the last two seasons.

Despite all those homers though, Smyly ranked 33^rd worst in HR/FB ratio at 12.7 percent last season. That mark was slightly better than the 14.3 rate he posted in 2015. The last two seasons, amongst pitchers who have thrown at least 200-innings, his 13.1 percent HR/FB rate is 36^th worst. For his career the mark is better at 10.8 percent, just slightly above the league average.

So, if his HR/FB ratio isn’t catastrophic, why is he allowing so many home runs? He simply allows too many fly balls. For his career Smyly owns a 0.82 GB/FB ratio. It’s not a good number when the league average in 2016 was 1.29. Things moved to absolutely catastrophic levels last season as the mark was 0.63. The only pitcher that was worse last year was Jered Weaver (0.60). In each of his first four seasons the mark was 0.83 or higher. Odds are in favor of Smyly increasing the number from last season. There’s no way his fly ball rate is 49.3 percent again. It just has to come down. By the way, all those fly balls also resulted in an infield fly rate that was third best in baseball last season. That’s a huge plus for the lefty.

A reason to believe this could happen is that Smyly determined that he simply wasn’t attacking lefties correctly. As Eno Sarris pointed out, Smyly made a conscious decision to switch up how he attacked lefties, and it worked as lefties wOBA prior to July 26^th was .325 whereas it dropped to .267 thereafter. Eno also points out that Smyly determined that his changeup was ineffective, so much so that he limited it to three pitches after July 26^th. That’s three total changeups from that point on.

Smyly has an 8.71 K/9 rate for his career. Compare that to the career marks of Madison Bumgarner (8.89), Jon Lester (8.75), Cole Hamels (8.62) and David Price (8.61). Yes, Smyly has a better K/9 rate for his career than all those perennial all-stars. All of them. He gets a lot of strikeouts.

Smyly always keeps the walks in check. Since he became a big leaguer Smyly has a 2.54 BB/9 rate (it was 2.52 last season). The league ratio since 2012, Smyly’s first season, is 3.00 per nine. 

Smyly owns a 3.43 K/BB ratio for his career. Here is a list of pitchers who failed to match that mark last season: Colin McHugh, Jon Gray, Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman, Jake Odorizzi, Robbie Ray, Drew Pomeranz, Jason Hammel, Hamels, Aaron Sanchez, Arrieta, Carlos Martinez etc. It’s a long list of good pitchers.

Smyly has a 1.20 WHIP for his career. Last season was the first time in four seasons that his mark was as high as that at 1.27. Here are the pitchers that didn’t have a 1.20 WHIP last season: CMart, Chris Archers, Kevin Gausman, Stroman, Hamels etc.

Finally, the innings.

Here they are since 2011 (minors and majors).

In 2013 he was used 63 times out of the bullpen and made zero starts.

In 2015 he dealt with shoulder woes for a good deal of the season.

Obviously Smyly has never thrown 180-innings in a season. Something to consider with him before you go reaching, skills or not. Still, Jason Hammel has never thrown 180-innings and that never seemed to stop folks from drafting him.

THE BALLPARK SWITCH

Smyly is moving from the Rays to the Mariners. Let’s see how that effects things.

In 2016...

It would seem, on the surface, that the move isn’t a positive one for Smyly, noting of course, that the Mariners offense last season was much better than that of the Rays (Mariners wOBA was .325 versus the Rays at .315) which does skew the data a bit. There were 2.46 homers hit at Tropicana last year versus 2.89 per game in Seattle at Safeco.

Every homer that Smyly allowed last year would have been a homer at Safeco (from ESPN).

Not in love with the park move am I.

THE COMPARISON

Here’s the comparison. Before I tell you who the pitchers are, I’m just going to list the numbers for you and see if you can figure it out. The numbers listed are the career totals for both.

OK, you probably got that Pitcher B is Smyly, that is if you read the above numbers, but who is Pitcher A? When I tell you the name it’s going to hit you like a ton of bricks that Smyly is a much better pitcher than you give him credit for being. The results are often maddening, but honestly, his skills are pretty darn solid and the numbers he’s posted in the above categories leave him on exactly the same footing as... Jose Quintana. Yep, Smyly’s skills line up pretty darn well with the lefty that you all want on draft day.

CONCLUSION

Smyly can break your heart. Even when going well he can come into any outing and allow three homers and seven runs. Just how it is. However, the above data should show you that Smyly is still a very skilled pitcher who is in a position to drastically outpace his draft day cost. With most giving up on Smyly because of the overall results last season, now is the time to buy him as his cost is pretty dang low.

10-Team Mixed: A late reserve round selection in this format, Smyly is a bit tricky to count on because of the aforementioned volatility. Still, the skills...

12-Team Mixed: He’s a 5/6 starting pitcher here. While others are calling out the names of Drew Pomeranz, Garrett Richards and Adam Wainwright give serious thought to rostering Smyly. The skills have been broken down, and as noted he really seemed to change his game after mid-season, and for the positive.  

15-Team Mixed: Pretty much read the 12-team comment here. The deeper the league, the more likely that someone with his skills should be rostered and given a shot to contribute.

AL-Only League: I’m buying. Savvy owners know what they have in Smyly and will be looking to capitalize given the low cost. If you’re in a league where others are on the ball you’ll have to be a bit aggressive with Smyly. Talk up the move to a better hitter’s park, mention all the homers, and while others are concerned – pounce.

For more, check out where Smyly is placed in the 2017 Player Rankings.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).