Why did the Atlanta Braves sign Drew Smyly?
About Those Stats
"It's an upside play, no doubt about it," said Alex Anthopoulos when asked about the $11 million spent on Drew Smyly. "We'll find out 10 months from now how that worked out."
— Joe Patrick (@japatrick200) November 16, 2020
"Our approach the last few years has been to be specific and target certain guys and be aggressive."
Let’s check out some of the stats leading toward that “upside”:
Barrel% – the percentage of batted balls “barrelled up” by opposing hitters. Smyly has not typically been great here, but was among the 4% worst in the NL in 2020 — and double the MLB average.
Not coincidentally, 41.7% of his batted balls against were hit on the sweet spot… 7% above average (that’s not good).
Exit velocity: on average, he’s a full 2 mph above the MLB average.
To be sure: his strikeout numbers soared in 2020 with 37.8%… the top 3% of the league. His walk rate dropped and his ERA was nearly cut in half as compared to 2019.
https://twitter.com/anthops_brain/status/1328460008019910658
Long-time readers will understand that this FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching) stat always sends me into a rant… it’s like applying a tunnel-vision stat to pitching that leaves out roughly 2/3rds of the game. It also heavily favors strikeout pitchers.
Quick Example: Max Fried had a 3.10 FIP in 2020. So who was the better pitcher: Smyly (3.42 ERA) or Fried (2.25 ERA)?
What all that means is that Smyly was throwing many more strikes… some of them got whiffs while some of them were pounded hard.
Indeed, he was getting a 50% whiff rate on his curveball (a pitch he threw over 1/3rd of the time) and 32.5% whiff rate on his cutter… a pitch he might consider throwing more often than 17.8% of the time.
In 2019, Smyly used a changeup occasionally (under 5% of the time) — with decent whiff results (32.7%). He abandoned that pitch in 2020 and upped his curve rate instead.
His fastball is fast enough (at least that was so in 2020… up 2.6 mph to 93.8 over 2019) to get whiffs on that as well.
Alex Anthopoulos on the signing of Drew Smyly: "We looked at him even last offseason as well. When he came back from the finger injury, his last four outings were really strong. The curveball is a real weapon for him. In our minds its one of the better curveballs in the game"
— 680 The Fan (@680TheFan) November 16, 2020
Actually, the problem with Smyly’s game may be with his curveball. When it works… it’s good (great, even). When it doesn’t, it gets hammered.
This could be related to a 10th percentile spin rate, which I suspect is the difference between a good curve and a “cement mixer” that doesn’t move.
The data doesn’t show us the variability of his spin rate, so there’s no good way to know whether he has elite spin at times and no spin at other times… or if it’s consistent and reacts differently during different weather conditions.
If the Braves believe they can fix that, then they could have an elite gem on their hands… a lefty who can do… well, roughly what Max Fried does (or at least Sean Newcomb on a good control day).
If they can’t fix that, then he’s a backhalf-of-the-rotation arm that the team overpaid for. But at least they should be able to get innings coverage out of him — and that’s still valuable.
But just wait — he’s not the only pitching target that Atlanta has this off-season.
Related Story. The News of the Day - Smyly Signed. light
All stats quoted are from MLB’s baseballsavant pages.