Justin Smoak: An Ode To Seattle Mariners and Failure

Justin Smoak was a failure. The Seattle Mariners traded away Cliff Lee, one of the best pitchers in baseball, for a chance to groom and utilize the switch-hitting power of a young slugger in Justin Smoak. The Mariners could have gotten slugger Chris Davis from the Texas Rangers in that trade had they wanted to.

So why am I thinking about Justin Smoak today? It’s 17 days until the first full-squad workout at Spring Training, and Smoak donned 17 for his 5 years with the Mariners. And wow, I am just now realizing that Justin Smoak spent FIVE YEARS with the Mariners. Good times.

In his 5 seasons with the M’s, Smoak played in 496 games, maxing out at 132 in 2012. Every season the front office and management would give Smoak another crack at playing first base, and every spring he’d find a way to hit well enough to give people hope. Then, from time to time, he’d hit over .300 in September and everyone figured he’d turn out just fine.

But in those 496 games, Smoak hit a meager .226/.308/.384 with 66 home runs, 200 RBI, and 74 doubles.

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His only real saving grace was that OBP, which stood 82 points higher than his batting average.

One thing Smoak did have going for him was his defense. He smothered balls in the dirt. He picked bad hops with ease. And he was tall enough and flexible enough to reach and dig out balls and extend high on overthrown balls. If he weren’t an inept hitter, he could have won Gold Gloves at first base.

That’s what hurt Smoak more than anything else, in my opinion: his lack of positional flexibility. As a first baseman you are expected to hit. Yes, it’s a valuable defensive position like every other, but it does carry the same defensive magnitude as pretty much anywhere else in the field (except for left field, depending on the ballpark).

He was clunky, struggled too frequently with his bat speed, and always found a way to get people’s hopes up.

This offseason the Mariners finally cut ties with the ‘slugger’, who was then picked up by the Toronto Blue Jays and subsequently signed to a 1 year, $1 million deal. According to Baseball Reference he has 4.077 years of service time– so he can still be had at a reasonable cost.

But who wants a first baseman who can’t hit? It seems the Mariners have finally checked off the ‘no’ box.

And despite all these depressing thoughts about a failed trade– like a failed relationship that lingers far too long for sentimental reasons– we are only 17 days away from Mariners Spring Training and baseball, and hopes of new, more budding relationships, like the ones with Logan Morrison and Nelson Cruz.