A's Chad Smith Quietly Having Excellent Spring with New Team
The Oakland Athletics made a slew of moves this off-season, and it can be difficult to keep up with all of them at times. One move that may have flown under the radar was back in early December when the A's sent 2020 second-round selection Jeff Criswell to the Colorado Rockies for 27-year-old reliever Chad Smith.
Smith is slated to join the A's bullpen on Opening Day this season, even though he's only pitched 18 big-league innings and has racked up a 7.50 career ERA to this point. One reason you should get excited is that he'll be removed from Coors Field, one of the most hitter-friendly parks, and placed into the Oakland Coliseum, one of the most pitcher-friendly places to play. To that point, his expected ERA per Statcast was right about league average at 3.91 based on the contact he gave up.
There's also the fact that six of the 15 runs he allowed last season came in one outing, his first at Coors Field, and second in the bigs. It's understandable that he'd have an inflated ERA.
But as I wrote back in January, Smith is an intriguing arm to keep an eye on this season. His slider produced a whiff rate of 56% in those 18 innings and a batting average against of just .100. In essence, it's un-hittable. That whiff rate ranked 8th in all of baseball on sliders thrown to at least ten batters.
That'll play.
This spring started pretty poorly for Smith, who gave up three hits and three runs in his first outing, walking one and striking out one.
Since that first outing, Smith has had five March appearances that have been on the cusp of dominant. He has totaled 5.2 innings, given up just one hit, zero runs have crossed the plate, and he has walked three and struck out seven.
Obviously you don't want to get into a habit of making too much out of spring outings and small sample sizes, but at the same time this is the entire sample that we have to work on with Smith in the green and gold, so go wild.
He's going to be an interesting guy to keep an eye on in 2023, and could even have late-inning potential as the season progresses.