Rockies’ Seth Smith ‘Expendable’, Might Be Traded
Rockies outfielder Seth Smith, expendable after the team signed Michael Cuddyer, is drawing trade interest from the Mariners, Athletics, Braves, Mets, and Rays, major-league sources said.
Smith could earn close to $3 million in salary arbitration, after posting a .284/.347/.483 line and 15 home runs in 147 games with the Rockies this year.
If you’re interested, Morosi and/or Rosenthal also zips through each of those five teams, explaining how Seth Smith would be a good fit. It all makes perfectly good sense, except for a little maybe thing...
Seth Smith maybe isn’t really good enough to play regularly.
He’s got massive splits.
Smith’s home and road OPS’s are 925 and 750.
Smith’s OPS’s against right-handed pitching and left-handed pitching are 881 and 588.
I don’t know how to get his road numbers against left-handed pitching, but I would love to.
Granted, you can’t take a Rocky’s road numbers as perfect predictors. And that massive difference in his platoon splits almost certainly exaggerates his true talents. But Smith looks to me like a platoon player. He does bat left-handed, so even as a platoon player he’ll still get plenty of playing time, and is worth something.
He just shouldn’t play every day if you can help it.
