Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospects: #9 Mallex Smith
Mallex Smith Scouting Report
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Smith is listed at 5’9 and 170, which looks right in his viewing. He’s a lefty hitter and a righty thrower.
Hitting
Smith has a compact stance, though he seems to always be moving. One of the things I noted in a lot of his swings is that his hips were still not launched when he swung. That’s the equivalent of a pitcher throwing with way too much arm. The crazy part is that I watched Smith hit a triple on a tough pitch and knock a very solid fastball out of the park to the opposite field, and on both pitches, he worked his hips through the zone, so he has the ability to do it, but for some reason, he doesn’t do it every time. He gets the bat to the ball frequently, but one bad habit pitchers tended to exploit in Gwinnett is that Mallex often is trying to take his first step down the baseline as he’s finishing his swing, which means anything that’s breaking outside, especially down and out, really is tough for him to handle. That said, he really didn’t struggle to make contact with any particular pitch. However, one concern I did have was with lefty pitchers who had a curve that broke to the glove side or a slider that broke similarly. That was extremely difficult for him to pick up, and you see it in his stat line as he struck out over 20% of the time against lefties on the season, which is 5% over his overall season number.
Base Running/Defense
This is an area where many casual fans see the overall stolen base numbers and assume he’s a burner that will cover ground no issue and is a great base runner without question. That’s simply not the case with Smith. In fact, this is the area that really needs the most work.
First, let’s consider the difference between base running and base stealing. Smith is a very solid base stealer. He gets a decent read off pitchers of either hand and steals bases at around an 80% rate, which is a very solid success rate. However, when needing to rely on his own instincts off the bat whether to break home or back to third on a grounder in the infield, for instance, he freezes, and a guy with his speed getting that one extra step will get extra runs for his team constantly. I was also disappointed multiple times to watch him end up at second base on a slow-rolling single into the outfield when he was standing on first base. That’s not something that a guy with his speed should be doing at all. The main time I was impressed with him in base running was when he was the focus of a bunt, when he seemed to read the bunt very well and break well there, but any other time, he struggled to read the ball off the bat.
Of course, that leads into the area where I feel the biggest work is needed in Smith’s game – defense. Smith’s speed makes up for a lot of mistakes, but he simply does not have the arm strength to cover up for mistakes. That cost Gwinnett runs twice in games I saw where Smith put himself into poor fielding position on a ball where a runner was tagging, and even with his arm, good position would have been an easy out at the plate. The worse part was watching him read the ball in center field. His reads off the bat were frequently poor. He flat out did a circle in the outfield twice in my viewing, one time with the Mississippi announcers laughing about it because Smith still made the catch. Those paths are more than concerning, and you could see in his pitchers that they were extremely frustrated by balls that he should have gotten to and didn’t due to a bad route. While his speed often makes up for his route mistakes, it doesn’t always, and putting in the work on his routes and reads off the bat is really the next step for him defensively that could turn him into an elite defensive center fielder. You’ll see a glimpse of what I’m talking about in the third video below where he takes a number of steps in the wrong direction before having to come back and make a sliding catch. It’s not the best video, but it was some video evidence.
Next: 2016 outlook
Video
Mallex Smith 2016 Outlook
Mallex is really the next guy up as far as hitters go. The Braves have a load of pitchers all on the doorstep ready to join the major league rotation, but right now, Smith is the only real “prospect” ready to challenge for the major league team right away in 2016. That said, there’s some significant things for Mallex to work on in order to fully utilize his speed in a way that could be useful long-term for the team.
I truly believe the best guy for Mallex Smith to work with is currently on the team in Michael Bourn. If you look at Bourn’s career, he had a similar profile as Smith coming up, actually getting such low consideration about his base running and his defense that the Phillies played him in left field, and the Astros worked with Bourn to go to the Dominican Winter League after his 2008 season to work on his defense and base running, and he made huge leaps in 2009 and became recognized as one of the elite defensive outfielders in the game by 2010. Their incredibly similar profiles and similar deficiencies in Smith’s game currently would make Bourn a perfect mentor for Smith for the time being. That said, the addition of a certain Andruw Jones to the coaching staff could also be a huge boon to Mallex’s future as it’s already been reported that Andruw has been working in center with Mallex on his routes.
Next: Braves Top 100 Prospects Updated
Mallex will most likely start in Gwinnett to start the season, barring an unforeseen trade that clears out a full-time outfield spot for him, because I do not believe the Braves want him platooning at all if he is in Atlanta. He’ll be up when he shows the defense and base running improvements he needs to. Ender Inciarte is an elite right fielder, but much like Jason Heyward was for the Braves in the past, he may simply be a good, not elite center fielder. With his speed, Smith could be an elite center fielder and allow Inciarte to move to where he truly brings incredible defensive value to the team – but that would require the move of a guy like Nick Markakis.