Will Smith's Batting Average Reads Like a Quiet Year. His Statcast Page Reads Like a Guy About to Go Off.
On the surface, Will Smith is having a quiet summer behind the plate for a Dodgers team built to win in October — a .249 batting average that wouldn't turn a head at a fantasy draft table.
Underneath that line, the numbers tell a completely different story. Smith's expected slugging percentage sits at .494, a 112-point gap over his actual .382 SLG — one of the widest disconnects on the entire slate. His wOBA (.321) trails his xwOBA (.385) by 64 points, and his 13.4% barrel rate ranks in the sport's upper tier. The contact quality of an elite middle-of-the-order bat is already there; the results, for months now, simply haven't landed.
Atlanta counters with Bryce Elder, a clean arm without much of a luck gap in either direction (3.92 ERA, 4.03 xERA) for a Braves club still fighting for its own postseason position at 76-55. The Dodgers will be doing it without center fielder Andy Pages, lost to a fractured hand since Monday — Alek Thomas, activated off that same transaction, slides back into the outfield mix. Tyler Glasnow starts for Los Angeles off one of his cleanest outings of the year, an 87.5% ground-ball rate and a 2.72 ERA that basically matches his 2.61 xERA, no hidden story on his side of the ledger tonight. Smith's box score has been ordinary for months. The exit-velocity readouts have not.