Justin Smoak vs. Ike Davis
by wobatus on Jun 15, 2011 1:24 PM EDT
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Whom do you prefer and why? Reality, fantasy, whatever.
I argued that Davis was undervalued as a prospect, suggesting he was close to Smoak if not quite as good. After last year I was still willing to give Smoak the edge but it was very close. At this stage, even with Smoak rebounding and Ike injured, I'd give the slight nod to Ike. Even though Smoak is a switch-hitter, he didn't crush lefties coming up and people made a big deal about Ike having problems with lefties. Ike seemed to have progressed versus lefties and hit them well last year, actually better than righties. This year in a tiny sample he is doing quite poorly against them. Meanwhile Smoak is actually hitting lefties better than righties this year. But for their careers Ike is at 99 wRC+ against them and Smoak 95, so both having some issues but not pronounced for young players.
Their walk and k rates are similar. Smoak has a slightly higher swinging strike rate. Smoak in a very tough home run park for, especially batting left i believe, Davis not in a great park either. Smoak's lower babips may be flukey (or Davis's high ones too), but his line drive rate has plummeted this year along with the power boost.
They are still close, but after the draft and their first minor league season there seemed to be a wide chasm in perception (and indeed results) that Davis has bridged.
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I would have to say Ike,
his stats have been better last year and both of there limited times two years ago, This year Ike got hurt but his stats and avg are still enough AB’s in to be legit. Id say Ike is the better Hitter with maybe a bit less power, But i dont know is Smoak will ever really get to be his best. In closing i would like Ike
I don't watch Ike, I watch Smoak, so I won't compare the two.
I’ll just say that Smoak is still every bit of the prospect I thought he was going into last year. I see a blossoming star, if not more. I actually think he’s got more power than I was expecting and should handle Safeco well. I’m happy he’s a Mariner.
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Yes
If I was a Mariner’s fan i’d be quite happy with his production this year, and yes, the power has been nice. I don’t know if he has Ike’s raw power, although .220 ISO with safeco is very good. Surprised his average is low. Last year he had bad babip luck given his line drive rate, this year his line-drive rate is quite low, but that may just be a fluke. Ike on the other hand has had quite high babips. That may be good luck, it may just mean he’s going to have high babips, if not quite this high given his lack of speed.
Safeco
is difficult to hit HRs for RHs, so Smoak’s improved power production from the right side has been welcomed very positively by M’s fans, especially considering the lack of power in the Ms lineup.
Production v. Projection
The gap in expectation for these two, I think, creates a false sense of their being significantly different. Smoak was considered a can’t miss draft pick, the best pure hitter in that draft, etc., while Ike was underrated and overlooked, and has exceeded projections at a pretty good clip.
As you point out, their performances to date are barely distinguishable, but since Smoak isn’t yet as good he is supposed to be, and Ike is already better than he was supposed to be, my first instinct is to say Ike, no question. But Ike has probably hit his ceiling, or close to it, while Smoak still has plenty of room to improve.
I think I would prefer Smoak as my starting 1B (fantasy or reality or on the Mets which is somewhere in between the two). But it’s quite close.
That you Wes?
Congrats on first place.
Either way, that’s a good take.
Shhhhhhhhhhh!
But, yeah, thanks. Gonna be a dogfight from here on out.
by pooptallica on Jun 16, 2011 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions
This was actually a fan post question last September as well
Smoak beat Davis 70 percent to 29 percent then. I would think given Smoak’s season to date that margin would hold or possibly expand.
http://www.minorleagueball.com/2010/9/2/1665564/justin-smoak-vs-ike-davis
Season to date
Smoak’s season to date has been very good but Ike’s even better production wise. So i have a hard time seeing Smoak’s advantage expanding in a vote. However, you may be right, in that after last year some may have at least questioned Smoak a tad and he has answered the bell this year.
Their career to date numbers are so strikingly similar. The low Smoak babip and ike’s high babip being the main differentiator.
Triple slash
Ike .271/.357/.460
Smoak .230/.321/.411
But that’s all babip:
Ike .325
Smoak .262
Not all bad luck though, since IFFB%:
Ike 7.5%
Smoak 14.5%. That’s almost all due to an obscenely high pop-up rate last year that Smoak has corrected. I don’t know how much pop ups may be random, but Smoak had an issue last year.
K/bb %s.
Ike 25.9%/11.9%
Smoak 25.3/11.8%.
Swinging strike:
Both 9.6%.
ISO:
Ike .189
Smoak .181.
Against lefties, wRC+
Ike 99
Smoak 95 (but Smoak hits them well this year, Ike badly).
This is all SSS relatively, of course. The lines are quite similar.
Maybe it is true that Ike is now close to his ceiling and Smoak just reaching for his. But the fact is Smoak upped his game this year yet Ike did as well.
My bias is towards Ike because i thought he was underrated. Given the similarities, but with Smoak’s higher projection coming into the draft, and one can see why given Ike’s sometimes longish looking swing, I am maybe being Met-fan biased and biased due to my earlier championing of Ike.
RE
But that’s all babip:
Ike .325
Smoak .262
Both far within sustainable ranges. Please stop with the BABIP arguments. Generally, they aren’t good.
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Sure
yes, they are within acceptable range. And before I noted maybe that will be ike’s babip level. Also that smoak popped out a lot last year and has a low line drive rate this year. Still, it is too early to say for sure if that is their general levels. They may end up closer than their overall numbers suggest right now. Last September you said you thought smoak was still the better of the 2. In that case ike’s .325 and smoak’s .262 had better start converging. If those are their normal, sustainable levels, then Ike is clearly a better hitter, since their other stats, k rates, walk rates, iso, are so similar.
I may be misinterpreting what you are driving at.
Last September you said you thought smoak was still the better of the 2. In that case ike’s .325 and smoak’s .262 had better start converging.
If I wanted to be right, I’d argue that the BABIP shouldn’t be a factor because they were both going to converage at a similar number. But, I don’t really care about being right. While there is no reason why they have to converge, they could.
If those are their normal, sustainable levels, then Ike is clearly a better hitter, since their other stats, k rates, walk rates, iso, are so similar.
If that was the case, I’d agree.
Though my point isn’t about Ike and Smoak really. Its about the flawed argument that a player’s BABIP is always going to regress to league average and we need to account for that in our evaluations. Before my computer died I was about 75% done with a piece on BABIP for BB about this very issue. When BABIP is within a sustainable rate we shouldn’t assume that it will always regress towards .300.
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You can find my musings at Bullpen Banter and Beyond the Box Score.
Cool
I really wasn’t arguing that their babips would converge. I was merely pointing out the facts. There is a wide spread between their babips career to date, and that is really the only major statistical difference between them in their relatively young careers.
Of course, other things could change. Smoak’s iso might expand, or Ike’s, or Smoak might start striking out less often. I think those things generally stabilize sooner. But as far as the babips, i did point out right after I said “but that’s all babip” that it isn’t all luck on that score. Smoak has a high career IFFB% and this year at least he has a low line drive % (although over their careers their line drive % are fairly even). And in a prior post on the thread I said maybe Davis will just have high babips. So I am aware that different hitters have different babip norms around which their annual rates will fluctuate. It may be a little early to say what their babip norms will be.
I haven’t done an xbabip calc, but judging from their batted ball profile Smoak is probably a little closer on that score to Ike than he is in straight babip.
Smoak could end up having low babips like Carlos Quentin, who even at a career .250 has value through his power. But Smoak hits more grounders, more line drives, fewer flyballs than Quentin. His babip should be a little higher. His iso isn’t in Quentin territory yet, but again, he is in Safeco versus Quentin in more homer friendly Comiskey. Quentin also Ks less (he’s a kind of interesting low average, high power, but decent contact slugger).
In any event, if these are their babip levels, Smoak will need to cut back on the Ks or expand in the power department to top Ike, or have Ike slip on those counts. I do think he is capable of that, and i think also his babip will increase somewhat, although I don’t base that on much at all. Perhaps he can get his line drive rate closer to last year without reverting to his pop-up ways.
Both of these guys have shown a lot of promise either way. Hey, maybe I should have thrown Gaby Sanchez into this discussion. :)
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by Jeff Reese on Jun 16, 2011 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This is rather interesting.
I have Ike on the DL and Smoak starting for me on my fantasy team.
Ike is one of the most underrated young players in the game
Has legitimate power that plays anywhere. Check it out – I think it was Baseball Prospectus – of all the players in baseball last year his home runs traveled the farthest. Bautista was second. He handles lefties fairly well (this year is too small of a sample size but handled them last year – also the eye test says he “hangs in against lefties”). He has the kind of approach in RBI situations at the plate that should lead to some big RBI years. He also has a great glove.
There seems to be this thinking that if you were not a very highly ranked prospect that you don’t get the respect you deserve until you really hammer it home with performance. I guess that is understandable to a certain degree.
Have to admit – I don’t know much about Smoak except for what I have read and I have not seen him so I won’t compare.
Don’t sell Ike short and if you can poach him off someones team on the cheap in a dynasty league – do it!
Ike
It’s not like he was chopped liver. He was drafted 18th overall. His NYPL debut ws pretty bad (I think he was coming off a hand-injury or some such). Smoak was much better in the minors at first, but Ike improved.
I recall reading from some scout at batting practice during international comp (Smoak and Ike were on the same team and Smoak was on a homer tear during the games) that Ike had the most raw-power of any prospect. Prodigious batting practice moonshots.
He also hit a monster shot earlier this year. i think the distance on that one was underestimated.
I am not surpised his homers traveled most on average. He is like a lefty Dave Kingman, if you recall his monster moonshots. Although I’d imagine the distance traveled up made up alot of the overall distance the ball flew. :)
I have to go with Ike
Last year, I still would have said Smoak. I thought Smoak would hit for higher average, and if you look at minor league numbers, he struck out less, and initially hit for more average.
But at this point in time, you now have 656 PA in MLB where Smoak is striking out as much as Ike, and is only hitting .231, plus you have another 462 PA in AAA where he only hit .261. Ike meanwhile has hit .271 in 750 MLB PA, and hit over .300 in another 275 PA in AA and AAA. Over the last 1000 PA, Ike has been the better pure hitter.
I always thought Ike had a slightly higher ceiling in theory, it’s just that on draft day Smoak seemed like the better bet to reach his ceiling (or something close). That no longer seems to be the case to me. I still think they are close, but I have to give Ike the edge for defense and raw power, and I think he has erased any doubts I once had about whether he would be as good a pure hitter.
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