A's Kevin Smith Could Play a Big Role for Team in 2023
Just a few days after the MLB Lockout ended last year, the A's front office traded beloved third baseman Matt Chapman to the Toronto Blue Jays for a package of players. Among them was a 25-year-old Kevin Smith. Two days later, he went 0-for-2 with a strikeout against the Los Angeles Angels in his first spring action with his new club.
Smith ended up having the best spring of his career, batting .325 with a .372 OBP and a .1.047 OPS in 16 games before the season began. The regular season was not as kind to him, as he started 0-for-16 at the plate, and in 47 games he ended up hitting .180 with a pair of homers and a .216 OBP.
Conversely, his defense was outstanding by the metrics. Statcast had him at 3 OAA (Outs Above Average) in about one-third of a season. Over the course of a full season, he was on pace to be a top-3 defensive third baseman, tied with Manny Machado in OAA.
The A's sent Smith to Triple-A on June 13, where he was hitting .224 with a .298 OBP entering September. That final month with the Aviators, he ended up hitting .365 with a .405 on-base, slugging 11 homers and driving home 19. His insane month of September lifted his overall numbers in Las Vegas to a .268 average with a .331 OBP and a .777 OPS.
That final month opened the door right back up to Smith being an option in Oakland on Opening Day once again, and in Saturday's spring opener he came off the bench playing shortstop, and went 2-for-3 with three RBI and a run scored.
You can point to the pitchers he got those hits against, Jeff Bain and Chad Patrick, and say that one is a guy with 20 innings of time in Triple-A and the other has maxed out at High-A, and that he had actually faced Bain in Vegas last season, going 1-for-4 with a single. That doesn't mean that Kevin Smith won't be important to the A's come Opening Day.
A couple weeks back, I listed Smith on my Opening Day roster, and had him listed in a platoon at third with new addition Jace Peterson (who went 1-for-1 with 2 BB and 2 RBI on Saturday). The reasoning for that begins with the defensive ability he showed us last season. Even while he was struggling with the stick, he was among the top defenders at the position.
The other part of this calculus is that Smith actually excelled against left-handers, batting .260 with a .296 OBP and a 116 wRC+ (where 100 is league average). He also held a .322 wOBA versus southpaws, which is the same as former Diamondback Daulton Varsho, one point below Seth Brown, and two points off White Sox slugger Luis Robert. That's the kind of hitter he was even when he was struggling.
With the addition of Jace Peterson, who ranked 6th among third basemen in OAA in just 113 games, the two can work in tandem to utilize the best of each other and give the A's an answer at the hot corner. The A's ranked 29th in baseball with a 63 wRC+ out of their third basemen last year, or 37% below league average.
Peterson himself was better against lefties last year as well, but held his own against right-handers, batting .230 with a .313 OBP (thanks to a 10.5% walk rate) and finished with a 95 wRC+. Smith and Peterson combined would provide the A's with at least a league average third baseman offensively, and likely a top-5 defender as well.
That's a pretty big upgrade over the 2022 squad, and something that not a lot of people are pointing to when they talk about the A's heading into 2023. The club has a number of tandems that should provide much better offensive output than the team received last season, like Tony Kemp and Aledmys Díaz at second, or Jesús Aguilar and Ryan Noda at first.
Seth Brown will likely be taking on more left field duties, and he finished the second half with a 147 wRC+. He will also not be seeing the shift in 2023, and that could have a big impact on his overall stats.
This A's team has the makings of a sneaky good club. Not a great cub, but a surprising one. Kevin Smith is one of those players that is going to catch people off guard in 2023, but the production has been there all along. The difference this season will be how the team utilizes him.