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2023 Player Outlook

What happened to the lefty-power-hitting bat last year? Smith struggled mightily to do anything in the batter’s box in 2022, and 2021 to a degree too. He was so bad that Daniel Vogelbach was able to beat him out. The Nationals signed Smith to a one-year deal to be the full-time first baseman and see if they can squeeze anything else out of him. There is hope here that he can be effective given that he hit .299 between 2019 and 2020 with 21 homers across 139 games. Smith hit either 10 or 11 homers in four straight seasons in the majors prior to 0 last year. In 2023, he should be back to double-digit homers and a .250 average now that he doesn’t have to fight for playing time and is still in the same division as he was previously. Despite the .194 AVG last year, he had a .264 BABIP and the rest of his metrics weren’t that far off career norms which indicates a probable return to those norms.