Oakland Athletics’ Should Not Have Sent Jake Smolinski to Triple-A
The Oakland Athletics’ best weapon against left-handed starters is now in Nashville.
There’s no reason that the Oakland Athletics should have given Jake Smolinski a second chance this season, considering how abysmal his performance with Texas was. He batted just .133, with a .470 OPS over 35 games.
With the A’s, however, Smolinski appeared to have found his niche. He appeared in 11 games, with just 29 plate appearances, but that small sample size was enough to impress. He hit .320/.379/.640, which was a far cry from his struggles in the early half of the year as a Ranger. Primarily, he was a weapon against left-handers.
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The A’s have struggled against lefties all season. While their right-handed hitters have held their own, batting .248 against righties and .258 against lefties, the left-handed hitters have been abysmal against southpaws. Their .201/.276/.288 is flat-out terrible, and the A’s needed to find some hitters who were able to battle back against left-handed starters. Smolinski did just that.
And yet, despite that stellar first impression – which was reminiscent of his .349/.391/.512 performance over 92 plate appearances in 2014 – Billy Beane felt that Smolinski was more expendable than players like Max Muncy. Muncy, who has batted just .207/.275/.378 this season, is hardly a superior hitter. But he plays first and third base, which the A’s felt they needed more than another outfielder, thanks to the return of Coco Crisp.
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But this was a foolish decision on their part. There are other players on the roster who are more than capable of stepping up to cover first or third base in the event of an in-game injury, and then if Muncy is actually needed as a long-term replacement, he’s just a flight away from returning to the team. But Beane elected to keep him with the big league club, banishing Smolinski to the Sounds instead.
Meanwhile, the A’s need someone who can hit against left-handers in place of Josh Reddick. Crisp is far from having proven that he is ready to be back with the team, after reaching base in just two of his five rehab starts. While it is certainly good to have him back, Smolinski was doing a fine job in the role he was in, and it was senseless to remove him from it.
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And the young outfielder’s numbers aren’t just a fluke. His batting average on balls in play in 2014 was abnormally high, at .458, but it was also unusually low during his tenure with Texas this season, at .171. Although the .316 BABIP he’s had with the A’s might be slightly higher than what his average will be, it’s a much more reasonable career projection than either of his partial seasons with Texas were. That means that this is much closer to what Smolinski can be expected to produce on a regular basis, and the A’s desperately need that in their lineup.
The Oakland Athletics made a mistake when they sent Smolinski to Nashville, and they would be smart to get him back to the big leagues as soon as his ten-day waiting period is over – unless they want to continue their losing ways against left-handed pitchers.