Former A's Infielder has Chance to Break Camp with New York Yankees
The Oakland A's acquired Kevin Smith in the deal that sent beloved third baseman Matt Chapman to the Toronto Blue Jays back in March of 2022. He played parts of two seasons with the A's, getting into 96 games while batting .182 with a .218 OBP. In his time in the green and gold, he split time between third base and shortstop, proving to be slightly above average at third and slightly below at short.
This winter he elected free agency and ended up signing a minor-league deal with his hometown New York Yankees. According to Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post, Smith may have the inside track on landing a spot on the Opening Day roster thanks to his ability to play shortstop. He would serve as the backup to Anthony Volpe with Oswald Peraza suffering a shoulder injury that will keep him out for six to eight weeks.
This isn't a sure thing, just Sanchez's speculation, but Smith has been a tremendous player in the minor leagues the past two years, including batting .324 with a .372 OBP and 16 homers last year in Las Vegas across just 42 games. It took him awhile to get going in 2022, but the final month of that season he was hitting at a similar clip.
Smith has shown that he can obliterate the ball in Triple-A, but that hasn't quite translated to the next level just yet. This spring he's batting .179 with a .281 OBP and striking out 34.4% of the time. Not a great stat line. His competition for a spot on the Yankees, according to Sanchez, is Jeter Downs and Jorbit Vivas.
Downs is batting .214 with a .353 OBP this spring, but has struck out in 8-of-14 at-bats (17 PA). He has experience at short in the minors, but in limited time at the big-league level he graded out below league average as well.
Vivas made it to New York this offseason in a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and has yet to make his MLB debut. He's also the only one of the three players in contention that holds a spot on the 40-man roster, but only has two innings of shortstop under his belt in the minors.
If it came down to Smith and Downs, then one could make the case that Smith has the advantage for one simple reason, and that's his heavy platoon splits which favor left-handers. He hit a more respectable .227 with a .277 OBP and a 113 wRC+ (100 is league average) against southpaws last season in 49 plate appearances. He was slightly better against them in 2022 in a similar sample size.
He may not be the perfect long-term solution, but he does offer a little bit of upside in a fill-in role defensively, and if Aaron Boone can find him some lefties to face, then he could be a decent bat in the lineup, too.