TORONTO – For every team but the Los Angeles Dodgers, the first round of the 2016 draft was a colossal disappointment. Teams spent more than $112 million in bonuses, almost all of it wasted. The pitchers have a losing record. The position players have hit .233 and made zero trips to the All-Star Game – with one shining exception.
He is Will Smith, the unassuming catcher who guided Yoshinobu Yamamoto through the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday. Smith singled in the first run, homered to break a tie in the seventh and drove in another run in the eighth, helping tie the series.
“Somebody texted me tonight, ‘He’s the silent assassin,’” said Marty Lamb, on the phone from his home in Kentucky after the game. “He doesn’t say a whole lot, but he gets the job done.”
Lamb scouted Smith at the University of Louisville, tracking him through two ordinary seasons before his breakout as a junior, when he hit .382. The Dodgers took Smith 32nd and he has provided almost three times as much value as any other first-rounder in his class.
Smith has collected 23 wins above replacement, by Baseball Reference’s calculation, dwarfing the next-highest total from that round: 8.6 by pitcher Nick Lodolo, who didn’t even sign with the team that drafted him, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
After Lodolo are Cal Quantrill (7.6), Cole Ragans (7.4) and Gavin Lux (7.2). Mickey Moniak, who went first overall to the Philadelphia Phillies, has scratched together 0.3 WAR in six seasons.
It is fair to say that if the Dodgers knew Smith would be this good, they would have chosen him 20th, where they picked Lux. But credit the organization with eventually landing a prospect nearly every other team could have picked. The Dodgers use their wisdom, and not just their wallets, to win.
“The big thing was he was super athletic,” said Lamb, who has also signed Walker Buehler, A.J. Ellis, Caleb Ferguson and Luke Raley, among others, in his decades with the Dodgers.
“He didn’t play a ton his first two years, but had a real good junior year (with a) really simple, easy swing that put the ball in play a lot. There wasn’t a lot of (swing and) miss and strikeouts to him.
“And what ended up happening was, we took him, he got stronger, they added a little more to his swing and he got some more power. The ingredients were there, and then player development got there to finish him off.”
Smith hit only two homers in his first two seasons with Louisville, then seven in his draft year. With the Dodgers, Lamb said, he has learned to use his legs to generate more power, which he showed in Game 2 by blasting an inside pitch from Kevin Gausman – who had retired 17 hitters in a row – into the second deck.
“It was the first time in a while he’s pulled a ball like that, so I think that’s part of the healing process,” manager Dave Roberts said, referring to Smith’s recent injury, a hairline fracture in his throwing hand that cost him almost a month before the division series.
“Gausman was throwing the baseball really well. We were in between, I thought, offensively with the fastball. When Will got into that 3-2 count – (he) just missed a 3-1 heater – and then they went to the well again and (he) hit a homer, there was just complete elation.”
Smith has hit safely in eight of his 10 postseason games, with a .314 average and .400 on-base percentage. The homer was his first in 55 days, but he bats cleanup for a reason.
Since 2019, Smith’s rookie season, his .834 OPS is first among the 13 players who have caught 500 games. His .358 OBP is the best by 30 points, and his .476 slugging percentage ranks third, one point behind the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez and eight behind the Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh.
Smith, 30, is not exactly anonymous. Last season he started a 10-year, $140 million contract that runs through 2033. He has made the last three National League All-Star teams and caught Buehler’s final curveball to clinch the World Series title at Yankee Stadium last October.
But the star power in the Dodgers’ lineup, with its MVP trio of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, naturally obscures a guy such as Smith – who, let’s say, may not have a future in the broadcast booth.
“He doesn’t really talk that much,” Freeman said. “He’s more focused on the pitcher and making sure they’re getting through the games. (So) for him to do things offensively, and what he’s done – he’s an All-Star back-to-back years, but I think he cares more about pitchers, and that’s what makes him so special.”
In Smith’s first World Series, in 2020, he mostly started at designated hitter. Austin Barnes was the Dodgers’ regular catcher then, including for the clincher against the Tampa Bay Rays. Since then, Smith has played 45 postseason games and caught in all of them.
“He’s been doing it now for, gosh, five or six years in the postseason, and does a good job of knowing scouting reports and does a lot of homework,” Clayton Kershaw said.
“But he also knows when to flip the script and not keep doing the same things over and over again. He’s got a great feel. I think that’s the biggest thing – knowing when to stick to strengths, knowing when to go off script, and he does a good job guiding the whole staff with that.”
Smith spoke in the interview room before Game 2, expressing confidence in the staff despite Toronto’s 11-4 thrashing in the opener.
“They fight in the box, they put together good at-bats, they move the ball,” he said. “So it’s just finding ways to get ’em out, keep ’em off balance. When they do hit the ball, finding pop-ups or ground balls right at guys. So it’s a challenge, it’s a good team, but I still trust our pitching more than their hitters. Hoping to even the series tonight.”
After doing that with his game-calling and his bat, Smith said in the clubhouse that hitting well at the game’s most demanding position is simply what he’s paid to do.
“It’s hard – it’s my job though,” he said. “So I’m just being prepared for the game, putting the work in. That’s what I do.”
He does it better than almost anyone else at his position, even if other catchers and teammates are much more famous. Just like in the 2016 draft, the Dodgers know what they have in Smith, and that is enough.
“Everything’s great – you name it, he does it,” Betts said. “Whatever stat you want to pull up, he does it very well. I don’t know how he flies under the radar, but if he does, he should come join all the guys at the top.”