Column: Will Smith too ‘vanilla’? Dodgers don’t care because he’s on a superstar path
On the surface, his personality is about as colorful as his name.
Postgame interviews conducted by Will Smith have the feel of court testimonies, his voice monotone, his face exhibiting no emotion.
That was the case again on Tuesday night, after Smith homered for the third consecutive game in the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium.
“I think the hitting coaches do a really good job helping me find my swing really quick and take it to really competitive games,” he said.
Smith went on like this for a couple of minutes before he was reminded that scrums like this will become a regular part of his life if he continues hitting the way he is now.
Julio Urías tossed six shutout innings as the Dodgers swept the two-game series against the Colorado Rockies with a 5-2 win at Dodger Stadium.
How prepared is he for that?
“As prepared as I need to be, I guess,” he said. “I don’t know.”
He smiled.
Oh, so you do smile.
“Yeah,” Smith said.
He chuckled.
Good to know. The extraordinary player with the ordinary name isn’t completely dead inside. While his low-key personality has made him one of baseball’s most overlooked players, Smith won’t be able to hide in plain sight for much longer.
Smith, 28, isn’t just an offensively-inclined catcher anymore. He’s about to become a superstar.
To the sport’s insiders, he already is, his offensive production through four seasons comparable to that of Carlton Fisk at a similar stage in his career. Last year, Smith batted .260 with 24 homers and 87 runs batted in.
He has remained on his upward trajectory in Year 5, hitting .421 with three homers and 10 RBI in five games. His elevated status should soon turn the Big Two of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman into the Big Three.
Manager Dave Roberts placed Smith in another Big Three as he declared, “I think he’s one of the three best catchers in baseball.”
The others: J.T. Realmuto of the Philadelphia Phillies and Adley Rutschman of the Baltimore Orioles.
“He’s a superstar,” Roberts said. “It probably makes him uncomfortable, but given his ability to post (in the lineup every day) and work both sides of the baseball, hit in the middle of the order, you don’t find guys like that.”
Smith opened last season as the team’s No. 6 hitter but ended up batting cleanup. The offseason departure of Trea Turner to the Phillies made Smith’s continued offensive growth a necessity for these top-heavy Dodgers, as Roberts made Smith his No. 3 hitter behind Betts and Freeman.
Michael Grove was the first pitching prospect to start for the Dodgers this season and delivered mixed results in a 13-4 win over the Colorado Rockies.
Roberts praised not only the power of Smith but also his situational hitting ability, pointing to a run-scoring double he hit into the right-center field gap on a breaking ball by Rockies reliever Pierce Johnson on Tuesday.
Smith’s importance to the offense has raised legitimate concerns about his workload, specifically about how much the Dodgers should rest him. Smith caught 108 games last year, 115 the year before that. Roberts held him out for the first time this year during the Dodgers’ third game of the season.
“In a vacuum, we can always look at it and say we’re better if Will Smith is in the lineup in any capacity,” Roberts said. “I think that as time goes on, as he gets his workload built up, it’s gonna be even tougher to not have him in the lineup.”
Smith was the Dodgers’ designated hitter 25 times last year, but Roberts has less flexibility to use him in that role, as the team now has a full-time DH in recent addition J.D. Martinez.
Julio Urías, who pitched six scoreless innings on Tuesday with Smith behind the plate, praised Smith for his improvement as a catcher.
“He has more experience,” Urías said in Spanish. “He knows you better. He knows the other teams better. In difficult innings, he calls for pitches that should be called. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
The defensive advancement was entirely expected, considered Smith picked up catching relatively late. An infielder and pitcher in high school, Smith didn’t become a catcher until he went to Louisville.
However, Roberts tempered expectations on how much his postgame interviews would improve when it was mentioned that his personality was …
“Too vanilla?” Roberts asked.
That’s one way to put it.
Privately, Roberts was asked, is Smith funny?
The pitch clock is winning over players and fans while it’s making baseball more fun and exciting. MLB might have saved itself with the concept.
“No,” he said without any hesitation.
Now, that was funny, the interview room suddenly filled with laughter.
“He’s consistent,” Roberts said. “He’s loyal. He’s intelligent. He’s a competitor. But certainly not funny.”
Roberts smiled.
“I like him just the way he is,” Roberts said.
I’m not entirely convinced. I saw Smith smile, I heard him laugh and I have a suspicion there might be more in there.
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