Dwight Smith Jr worth a look?

[LA2]

23 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Brooks Robinson, Julio Lugo, Matt Wieters and Alejandro De Aza all have about the same career OPS. 

I get your point , but it's interesting to me that Baseball-reference's top three similar players for Brooks, offensively speaking, are Rusty Staub, Robin Yount, and Buddy Bell, the last one throughout most of Brooks' career. That's actually better than I thought, given how long his decline was.

[interloper]

Smith has been incredible. You can take your defense takes and stuff it, basically. This guy was a DFA waiver claim and he's killing it as an offensive player in the major leagues. To say he's been anything but a complete success for the Orioles is being overly contrarian, IMO. 

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

The biggest problem is that he plays so deep that routine fly balls often fall in front of him.  I don't watch a lot of games, but I've seen that happen a few times.  He seems best when he's going back on balls - which makes me wonder why he plays so deep.  He's not the worst I've seen in LF (Nolan Reimold), but he's bad.

I’ve seen far worse than Reimold.

LF: -9 Rtot/yr, -3 Rdrs/yr, -4.6 UZR/150

OF: -10 Rtot/yr, 0 Rdrs/yr, -5.8 UZR/150

Those numbers are below average, but not terrible.

Smith is on pace for -9, -11, -10.4.   So, as bad as Reimold on Rtot/yr, worse on the other measures.

To my eye, Smith and Reimold are about equally bad at judging fly balls and route efficiency.    But Reimold was faster and had a much better arm.

 

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, interloper said:

Smith has been incredible. You can take your defense takes and stuff it, basically. This guy was a DFA waiver claim and he's killing it as an offensive player in the major leagues. To say he's been anything but a complete success for the Orioles is being overly contrarian, IMO. 

I think he’s been pretty successful, but “incredible?”   I guess I’m more stingy with that word than some.  

[Going Underground]

I remember when the Orioles picked up Jimmy Paredes and he was leading the league in hitting till the end of May.Hunter and other people were saying what a pickup for nothing Let's see where Smith is by June of next year.

[LA2]

27 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’ve seen far worse than Reimold.

LF: -9 Rtot/yr, -3 Rdrs/yr, -4.6 UZR/150

OF: -10 Rtot/yr, 0 Rdrs/yr, -5.8 UZR/150

Those numbers are below average, but not terrible.

Smith is on pace for -9, -11, -10.4.   So, as bad as Reimold on Rtot/yr, worse on the other measures.

To my eye, Smith and Reimold are about equally bad at judging fly balls and route efficiency.    But Reimold was faster and had a much better arm.

 

But Smith, Jr. will most likely far outdo Nolan on a very underrated stat: number of games played. Or number of games available to play--knock on wood. Nolan's speed and arm hardly had a chance to display themselves.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, LA2 said:

But Smith, Jr. will most likely far outdo Nolan on a very underrated stat: number of games played. Or number of games available to play--knock on wood. Nolan's speed and arm hardly had a chance to display themselves.

Can’t debate that.   The most important ability is availability.

[makoman]

23 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think he’s been pretty successful, but “incredible?”   I guess I’m more stingy with that word than some.  

Agree, he's got a 107 OPS+ with a 302 OBP, and below average defense at a position low on the def spectrum. Definitely successful, especially for a waiver claim, and I'm happy to keep running him out there, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 

[interloper]

49 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think he’s been pretty successful, but “incredible?”   I guess I’m more stingy with that word than some.  

If I can't get excited, then it's no fun. Sure, incredible is a little hyperbolic. /shrug 

[Moose Milligan]

I'm with @interloper, maybe not incredible but certainly in the conversation for biggest surprise of the year.  He was scooped up right before the season started and we were all like "Do we really need another outfielder?"

It's a shame that his defense will hold him back.  He seems like a really good dude and I'm happy he's having success so far.  He's not a super speedy guy, but should be fast enough to cover some ground out there.  Maybe he can improve on flyball recognition and routes.  

[LA2]

9 hours ago, interloper said:

If I can't get excited, then it's no fun. Sure, incredible is a little hyperbolic. /shrug 

Haha, some would say it's OK to hyperbolize (without shrugs even) in the Game Threads, but not here beneath watch towers streaming lethal packets of data at you. But let's be honest: most of us are here to return to being--or remaining--kids and so, indeed, have fun! Firestone gets away with it, why not the Interloper, whose Silver Linings are the Hangout's priceless invitation to "Smile, Light up your face with gladness!," no matter how pathetically the team has played just a few hours before.

[LA2]

4 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'm with @interloper, maybe not incredible but certainly in the conversation for biggest surprise of the year.  He was scooped up right before the season started and we were all like "Do we really need another outfielder?"

It's a shame that his defense will hold him back.  He seems like a really good dude and I'm happy he's having success so far.  He's not a super speedy guy, but should be fast enough to cover some ground out there.  Maybe he can improve on flyball recognition and routes.  

What has been cool so far is that there are so many players in that very conversation: Smith, Jr.; Means; Severino; Alberto; Nunez; Mancini (even though the expectations were higher for him), and, who knows, Broxton and Wilkerson may be on that list come July or August. The take-away so far, I think, is that, regardless of W/L record, the upward surprises have been so much more enjoyable than the downward disappointments of last season.

[Redskins Rick]

2 minutes ago, LA2 said:

What has been cool so far is that there are so many position players in that very conversation: Smith, Jr.; Severino; Alberto; Nunez; Mancini (even though the expectations were higher for him), and, who knows, Broxton and Wilkerson may be on that list come July or August. The take-away so far, I think, is that, regardless of W/L record, the upward surprises have been so much more enjoyable than the downward disappointments of last season.

Which makes this season easier to watch than last season, regardless of the actual w-l record

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I’ve seen far worse than Reimold.

LF: -9 Rtot/yr, -3 Rdrs/yr, -4.6 UZR/150

OF: -10 Rtot/yr, 0 Rdrs/yr, -5.8 UZR/150

Those numbers are below average, but not terrible.

Smith is on pace for -9, -11, -10.4.   So, as bad as Reimold on Rtot/yr, worse on the other measures.

To my eye, Smith and Reimold are about equally bad at judging fly balls and route efficiency.    But Reimold was faster and had a much better arm.

 

He did, and good comparison defensively. Of course, Reimold's arm was strong but it didn't play well due to accuracy issues.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

12 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Which makes this season easier to watch than last season, regardless of the actual w-l record

Last’s years team was “supposed” to win and that made it all more painful to watch. With no expectations it’s a pleasant surprise when a Severino or Means plays better than projected.