Caleb Smith

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Note: This page is for pitcher Caleb Smith who made his major league debut in 2017; for others with the same name, click here.

Caleb Anthony Smith

BR page

Biographical Information[edit]

Caleb Smith was charged with a loss in his major league debut for the New York Yankees on July 17, 2017. Facing the Minnesota Twins, he replaced starter Bryan Mitchell in the 6th inning with the Twins leading 2-1, but the Yankees tied the game in the bottom of the frame. He had pitched a perfect 6th, and followed with a perfect 7th as well, but in the 8th, he gave up back-to-back singles to Joe Mauer and Miguel Sano, and after one out, a single to Eduardo Escobar and a double to Eddie Rosario that resulted in two runs for a 4-2 loss.

He had been drafted by the Yankees in the 14th round of the 2013 amateur draft. The Milwaukee Brewers selected him in the 2016 Rule V Draft, then immediately traded him to the Chicago Cubs. He failed to make the Cubs' team out of spring training in 2017 and had to be offered back to the Yankees as a result. He began the season with the AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders before being called up to the Show when the Yankees played a 16-inning game followed by a doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox in a span of two days, exhausting their bullpen corps. He pitched 9 times for the Yankees, going 0-1, 7.71. Two of his appearances were as a starter, and he logged 18 2/3 innings. In the minors, he went 9-1, 2.41 in 19 games (17 starts) between the AA Trenton Thunder and AAA [Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, striking out 102 batters in 100 2/3 innings.

On November 20, 2017, he was traded to the Miami Marlins along with 1B Garrett Cooper in return for minor league P Mike King and international bonus pool money. On April 29, 2018, he earned his first major league victory when he defeated the Colorado Rockies, 3-0, allowing 2 hits over 7 innings, striking out 9 and walking 1. He went 5-6, 4.19 in 16 starts, pitching 77 1/3 innings, but he was placed on the disabled list on June 25th with a grade 3 left lat strain, and was unable to return until the following year given the severity of the injury. At the time of the injury, he was leading all major league rookies with 88 strikeouts. In 2019, he had a solid season for the Marlins, making 28 starts and going 10-11, 4.52 for the last-place team. He led the team in wins and strikeouts (168) and his 153 1/3 innings were second to Sandy Alcantara.

In 2020, he started the Marlins' second game of the season on July 25th against the Philadelphia Phillies, giving up just one hit - a solo homer by Didi Gregorius - in 3 innings, although he walked 6 opponents. He was then one of the players who were infected in the COVID-19 outbreak which wracked the team immediately after that opening series. He was unable to return to action for the next five weeks, but in the meantime, the Marlins, using a patched-together roster, had played surprisingly well, finding themselves in postseason contention when the trading deadline of August 31st neared. Sensing an opportunity to be seized, the Marlins dealt from an area of strength - pitching - to obtain a front-line bat in OF Starling Marte of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Smith headed to the desert in compensation, alongside Humberto Mejia and a player to be named later. He appeared in 4 gams for the D-Backs, including 3 starts, with no decisions and a 2.45 ERA in 11 innings. In 2021, he won a job in Arizona's starting rotation coming out of spring training. On August 18th, he became the second pitcher to be ejected from the game as a result of the umpires discovering something untoward on his person during the routine in-game checks of all pitchers that had started in June. Crew chief Tom Hallion claimed to have found a foreign substance on his glove; for his part Smith stated that it was just a combination of dirt and rosin and that there was nothing illegal. His glove had been inspected earlier in the game and nothing objectionable had been found at that time. He made 45 appearances for the D-Backs, including 13 starts, going 4-9, 4.83 with 124 strikeouts in 113 2/3 innings.

Further Reading[edit]

  • Steve Gilbert: "Glove check ends in ejection for Caleb Smith", mlb.com, August 19, 2021. [1]

Related Sites[edit]

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