Seattle Mariners’ Rotation Has Fans ‘Smyl-yng’

The World Baseball Classic this spring has taken many of the every-day, Seattle Mariner hitters out of the lineup and away from the team’s clubhouse. Lost in the shuffle of that group has been starting pitcher Drew Smyly, who is pitching in the classic for the American squad.

If you have been following the Mariners this spring training on the ROOT Sports Network, you probably haven’t thought much about Smyly with the success of James Paxton, Chris Heston and some of the other arms with the Mariners in Peoria, Ariz. since he is away from the team and not pitching regularly. Before the WBC started, Smyly (1-0) pitched in two games for Seattle, going five innings, allowing just one hit and striking out five.

Then came his turn to face some international players in a U.S.A uniform.

His success continued in his start for the Americans when he tossed 4.2 innings with eight strikeouts in a win against the potent lineup from Venezuela. His spring stats combined so far have yielded 9.2 innings, four hits and 13 strikeouts. That’s a pretty impressive start to his Mariners career.

LET’S NOT GET EXCITED…YET

It’s no doubt Smyly has fans ‘Smylyng’…(get it…smiling/Smylyng…) so far, but for some reason the 27-year old left-hander has teased his prior teams with excellent spring trainings as well.

In Smyly’s five-year career, he has gone a combined 11-2 with a 3.26 ERA in 85.2 innings with a WHIP of 1.05 and 70 strikeouts to go with it. Compare that to his 2016 stat line in Tampa Bay, and Smyly was a different pitcher – finishing 7-12 with a 4.88 ERA in 175.1 innings with a more human-like WHIP of 1.27. (WHIP is calculated by adding walks + hits/Innings Pitched in case you didn’t already know that.)

His career numbers are somewhere in between the two spikes with a record of 31-27, a 3.74 ERA and a WHIP of 1.20. With more emphasis being put on the regular season starts and a much larger sample size to analyze, the Mariners might not be sure what they will get out of their No. 4 starting pitcher.

SMYLY’S JOURNEY TO SEATTLE

Signed in August of 2010 by the Detroit Tigers, Drew Smyly quickly made his way through the minor leagues of the organization before debuting for the Tigers in 2012. He went 4-3 in his rookie year, starting 18 games in his first taste of the majors.

He served the team as more of a reliever in his sophomore season, but posted great numbers – going 6-0 with a stingy 2.37 ERA while appearing in 63 games.

In 2014, Smyly was involved in one of the more prominent MLB trade deadline deals as he went to Tampa Bay along with shortstop Willy Adames (who I believe is one of Tampa’s top prospects this year and knocking on the door to the majors). The Tigers got that guy who is now in Boston…what was his name…oh yeah, David Price! (On an unrelated note, there is a guy who lives in the Gresham, Ore. area currently who looks EXACTLY like David Price. I walked up to him as a complete stranger and asked him, ‘has anyone ever said you look like David Price? He said, yeah, I get that all the time.’ It was super -weird. He had a Red Sox baseball hat on, backwards of course, and everything. #DopplegangerAlert)

Anyways, back to the trade.

Coincidentally enough, the Mariners were also involved in that trade. The Mariners sent Nick Franklin to the Rays and the Tigers gave Austin Jackson to the Mariners. I feel they could have made that deal a lot less complicated if they knew Smyly would be a Mariner in 2017.

Smyly’s career in Tampa wasn’t necessarily a fun one. It was highlighted by a lot of disabled list stints and lots of inconsistencies. He made only 12 starts in 2015 and had the aforementioned down year in 2016.

Did I mention he struck out eight Venezuelans? They weren’t like, local teenagers on the streets of Caracas or anything. The Venezuelan WBC team has some serious thunder. Jose Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez and other players currently seeing every-day at bats on Major League teams faced him, got dominated and ultimately lost the game.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM SMYLY?

Pitching behind King Felix, Hisashi Iwakuma (I think I spelled it correctly WITHOUT needing to Google it for the first time ever) and Paxton, Smyly certainly won’t be expected to be a superstar. I assume he prefers it that way. Actually, he may even pitch fifth in case the M’s want to split up the lefties (with Paxton going third). No matter how you slice it, the pressure on Smyly will be relatively low heading into the season.

If he continues to pitch scoreless innings for the Americans, however, the expectations may rise.

I would like to see 13 wins and 30 starts. Is that optimistic? Maybe but I feel it is realistic. He is 27 years of age now entering his sixth season, so hopefully the maturity factor will help his game a little bit. He really just needs to stay healthy.

I don’t expect him to fan eight hitters every 4.2 innings he pitches, but if he can even out to 9k/9IP ratio, I think manager Scott Servais will be pleased.

FINAL WORD

The WBC has had an interesting effect/affect (See one of my previous columns where I rant about the difference in those words) on the Seattle ball-club this spring. Maybe Smyly seeing the quality of players in the ‘big-game’ environment this early will help his preparation for the regular season.

He has always pitched well in March – that has never been an issue. This is his first-year pitching for Team USA, so it will be interesting to see if the talented left-hander can finally turn a successful spring into a successful season.

Go Mariners…and good luck Ducks! And in a random thought, April the giraffe – we are rooting for you. Please just have the baby, so our social network feeds can feature something else.