RADIO
A New Approach in Tampa Bay Makes Drew Smyly Worth Drafting
Drew Smyly is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a Rays jersey. His size, pitch velocity and, most importantly, his strikeout totals get fantasy GMs excited, but his platoon split issues made Smyly a part time fantasy baseball contributor. He simply couldn't be trusted in a "set and forget" role as a starting pitcher...until he was dealt to the Tampa Bay Rays.
The biggest issue with Smyly is his platoon split against right-handed hitters. Smyly is absolutely deadly against left-handed hitters with a Clayton Kershaw-esque .238 wOBA against lefties for his career. Against righties...he turns into Jordan Lyles with a .327 wOBA against.
What’s the issue? Platoon splits usually mean a pitcher is lacking a weapon to attack hitters with. Whiffs are typically generated by breaking pitches, not the hard stuff.
Smyly has a fantastic curve and uses it to generate whiffs against lefties. Lefties hit only .136 against Smyly’s curve and posted an 16.3% swinging strike percentage. Righties didn’t fare much better against Smyly’s curve. They managed a .197 mark against the curve with a 14.8% swinging strike percentage.
The problem lies with Smyly’s change up. He never threw it against lefties on 2014 if BrooksBaseball.net is to be believed. Hmmm. He did throw it to righties in 2014. He threw the change 96 times to righties in 2014 and the results weren’t very good. Righties posted a .400 BAA against with an .800 slugging percentage against Smyly’s change.
Right-handed hitters also teed off on his four seam fastball and managed a .298 BAA and a .450 SLG against it.
Most of his 2014 numbers were compiled as a member of the Detroit Tigers. Let’s focus in on what happened after the Rays acquired Drew Smyly.
The fact that a Rays team with Andrew Friedman and Joe Maddon still at the helm targeted Smyly meant the ears of fantasy GMs should have perked up. Historically speaking, the Rays were usually smarter than most other teams when it came to evaluating talent under Friedman and Madden. The fact that they acquired Smyly as the centerpiece of a deal for their largest trade chip says they think Smyly has a bright future.
Smyly made only seven starts for the Rays before he was shut down, but he was given some new advice and appeared to follow it because he threw six quality starts out of seven games started. Among those six quality starts was a complete game shutout. Not bad.
He was told he had to find another way to put away right-handed hitters. This should also come with a healthy dose of vitamin duh, but he was also told to elevate his fastball. This seems like a bad idea because typically fastballs up in the zone are pounded...unless they’re thrown at a time when batters aren’t looking for them. Like when they have two strikes against them and pitchers are throwing breaking stuff to generate whiffs. Smyly threw 45% of his fastballs as a Ray more than three feet off the ground. As a Tiger? Only about 25% of his fastballs were three feet up in the zone.
Smyly also threw 26 changeups as a Tampa Bay Ray last season and hitters didn’t touch any of them. Only four came with two strikes and only one was put in play.
In Summary
Quick fixes rarely happen in baseball, but this looks like a case of a quick fix. He took the Rays’ advice, applied it and reaped the rewards almost instantly. Drew is likely still viewed by most as “That Platoon Split Guy” and will likely come at a discount once draft season heats up. Smart fantasy GMs will have no qualms about adding Smyly in the early ‘teen rounds of their drafts.
