Ready For Primetime: Will Smith Is Ready To Be The Top Fantasy Catcher
What if I told you the catcher position didn’t have to be the worst? That there’s a potential superstar in the mix who isn’t considered one of the top two at the position as of this writing? Would you be interested in hearing more about Will Smith?
When I say superstar, I don’t just mean “for a catcher.” Smith, who will turn 26 this season, has incredible upside. He has a 55/55 Raw Power grade from Fangraphs’ Prospects Report, and it’s been on display in his limited MLB exposure. He had 15 home runs in 2019 in just 54 games, and swatted eight last season in 37 games. Smith’s 2020 slash line showed significant growth, raising his batting average to .289 from .253 as a rookie, and posting a .401 OBP. He chopped his strikeout rate by 10 percentage points, and increased his walk rate to 14.6%. That is awesome plate discipline for a player with just 333 career plate appearances.
Even more impressive than those numbers are his contact skills, and the quality of his contact. He posted an 85% contact rate in 2020, and a 47.3% Hard Hit percentage, placing him in the Top 12 percentile in MLB. He had an average exit velocity of 90.8, two miles per hour better than MLB average, and putting him inside the Top 20 of MLB. One more…he barreled up 12.9% of his batted balls, doubling MLB average (6.4%). And for all this success, he ranked inside the Top 5th percentile in xWOBA, which means he has much more room to grow.
Need more? He posted a 27.8 Sprint Speed, finishing 2020 in the 73rd percentile of baseball. This doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly start getting a bunch of steals from the catcher position, but he did steal six bases in High-A, and four in Double-A. At bare minimum it means he has the speed to take extra bases that many of his peers can’t, and makes him a better bet for runs than, say, Salvador Perez, who is ranked ahead of him and being taken 11 picks earlier.
The biggest reason Smith isn’t being drooled over is playing time. This is a common refrain for several Dodgers (Gavin Lux, Edwin Rios) I’ve written about this offseason, but for Smith it’s the most frustrating. His main competition will once again be Austin Barnes, who appeared in 29 games last season slashing .244/.353/.314. Barnes’ primary value to the Dodgers is his defense, as he earned a 4.2 Def rating from Fangraphs, and had been worth double-digits in that category for three straight seasons before COVID limited 2020 to 60 games. Smith, however, earned a 3.3 Def rating in 2019, and fell off to -1.4 last year but didn’t have a full season’s worth of opportunity. Barnes’ value in real life shouldn’t be sneezed at, but Smith is far from a liability, and his impact at the plate can be massive this season. Smith is no project; he’s the real deal, and if he gets the at-bats of a typical starting MLB catcher, he has the upside to finish No. 1 at the position.
It’s not often you’re able to draft a player who could finish atop his position at pick No. 100, so I’d advise any fantasy owners looking to secure a top-flight backstop to bypass J.T. Realmuto inside the Top 45, and scoop up Smith several rounds later.