Champ or Chump: Dominic Smith

Evaluating 2020 fantasy seasons has been very difficult. Each player's season line looks like a full campaign on a player's FanGraphs page or the back of their baseball card, but in truth, it's only slightly more than one-third of a full season. There had to be some legitimate breakouts that we shouldn't discount, but how do we separate those guys from the guys who would have regressed over a full 162?

It has been a lot of guesswork, and early returns suggest that the fantasy community as a whole hasn't done very well. For example, Dominic Smith hit .316/.377/.616 with 10 HR over 199 PAs for the Mets last season, inspiring managers to take him at 120th overall per FantasyPros despite his not having a position. There was even talk that he might dislodge 2019 Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso!

Smith's 2021 has been ugly thus far with a .222/.271/.323 triple-slash line with two homers over 107 PAs. He's been demoted in the lineup, and nearly all of his peripherals are substantially down from 2020. He's still rostered in 64% of Yahoo! leagues, but he probably shouldn't be. There are two reasons why: his 2020 campaign wasn't as good as it looked at first glance, and his 2021 performance is highlighted by several red flags.

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2020: A Year in Review

One of Smith's biggest problems as a prospect was a lack of power, especially for a guy who projected as a first baseman. He only eclipsed the 20 HR plateau in one professional season, needing 683 PAs to hit 26 long balls between Triple-A and MLB in 2017. Part of the reason why is a FB% that rarely reached 35% on the farm, meaning that he just wasn't hitting enough airborne balls for a slow-footed first sacker.

You might think that Smith solved this problem based on his .616 slugging percentage in 2020, but he did not. Only 33.3% of his batted balls were classified as flies last year, with a 22.2% HR/FB largely responsible for his power breakout. He didn't deserve such a high HR/FB either, as his xSLG of .563 was considerably lower than his actual .616 mark. His 94.9 mph average airborne exit velocity was more good than great, though his 13.3% rate of Brls/BBE was legitimately strong.

Likewise, Smith's batting average didn't pass the sniff test. Hitting .316 is obviously great, but his xBA of .301 wasn't quite as good. Furthermore, Smith benefited from poor defensive alignments from opposing teams. He only pulled 56.4% of his ground balls, yet opposing teams shifted him in 109 of 125 opportunities. He hit .355 against the shift, likely enjoying base hits that he would not have had the opposing team played him straight up.

2021: Everything Trending Badly

Smith's 2020 peripherals suggested a good hitter who wouldn't quite live up to his previous line in 2021, but 2021 has been a disaster. His FB% has fallen to 28.4%, well short of the 40% rate you'd like to see from a slugger. Furthermore, his HR/FB has declined to just 9.5% for two key reasons.

First, his airborne contact quality has nosedived with his 93.7 mph average airborne exit velocity representing more than a full tick off of his 2020 rate. Likewise, his 8.1% Brls/BBE is substantially lower than it was last season. Second, his Pull% on fly balls has declined from 24.4% in 2020 to 9.5% this season. Pulled batted balls have the easiest time finding the cheap seats, and Smith needs every advantage he can get given his middling contact quality.

At the same time, Smith's batting average is down because he decided to give back all of the free hits he got last year due to opposing shifts. Opponents are still shifting him often (61 of 71 opportunities, to be precise), but his Pull% on ground balls of 69.7% now completely justifies it. He's only hitting .250 against the shift now, more than 100 points lower than his 2020 performance.

Smith is also experiencing plate discipline issues. In 2020, Smith posted a 7 BB% and 22.6 K% that masked less impressive peripherals like a 37.1% chase rate and 12.4 SwStr%. His 36.8% chase rate in 2021 is virtually unchanged, but his SwStr% has spiked to 13.9% en route to a 5.6 BB% and 24.3 K%. The combination of more strikeouts and fewer walks is exerting downward pressure on his batting average that he just doesn't have the contact quality to make up for.

Positive xStats No Sign of Things to Come

Smith's proponents will undoubtedly point to his .295 xBA and .536 xSLG as evidence that he has just been unlucky to date and the hits will start falling in soon. The author agrees to an extent, as Smith's .278 BABIP on the season is likely to creep toward his career mark of .300 moving forward. However, Smith profiles as a guy who will always underperform his xStats.

Fantasy managers generally understand that catchers won't beat out as many infield hits as other players because they can't run. With a Statcast Sprint Speed of 25.4 ft./sec on the season, Smith runs like a catcher. Therefore, Smith won't beat out grounders that most of the league will, a fact that xBA doesn't properly account for.

Likewise, Smith has been a line-drive machine in each of the last two seasons, posting a LD% of 27 in 2020 and 25.9% so far this season. xStats gives him full credit for both of these marks, but LD% is a notoriously fickle metric that takes multiple full seasons to become predictive of anything. We have to assume that his LD% will fluctuate like most other players, a form of regression that xStats do not help us with.

Parting Thoughts

Smith began the year with a prominent role in the Mets lineup but generally hits fifth now, with some starts as low as seventh. That lineup spot doesn't offer much fantasy value even if you assume that the Mets will start hitting better as a team. He's also an atrocious defender as both 1B and the outfield, so the Mets won't keep playing him for his glove. Considering that he lacks the track record of an established superstar such as Francisco Lindor, it's tough to see how Smith puts up worthwhile fantasy numbers the rest of the way. That makes him a Chump.

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