Will Smith (smithwi05)

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William Dills Smith

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Biographical Information[edit]

''MLB had never seen back-to-back rookie walk-off home runs until Saturday, and now the Dodgers have three." - Ken Gurnick, writing for MLB.com, June 23, 2019, about the first time that rookies, of which Smith was one, did back-to-back-to-back walk-off home runs

Will Smith was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in Compensation Round A of the 2016 amateur draft, with the #32 pick overall. The pick was compensation for Zack Greinke leaving via free agency. Smith was the Dodgers' second pick in the draft, following infielder Gavin Lux with pick #20. As a junior at the University of Louisville, where he had converted from shortstop to catcher, he hit .382 with 7 home runs in 55 games. He signed for a bonus of $1.775 million

He began his professional career in 2016 playing for three different teams: the Ogden Raptors, the Great Lakes Loons and the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. Overall, he played 55 games and hit .246/.355/.329 while playing mainly catcher, but also a few games each at second and third base. In 2017, he played 72 games with Rancho Cucamonga in the California League, and 1 with the Tulsa Drillers of the AA Texas League. He hit .231/.358/.446. with 15 doubles and 11 homers while again seeing most of his time as a catcher and was a mid-season All-Star in the California League. In 2018, however, he split his playing time between catcher and third base almost equally as he made it to AAA for the first time after starting the year with Tulsa. He hit .264 in 73 games to earn a promotion to the Oklahoma City Dodgers in early August, but his bat went completely cold in the Pacific Coast League, as he managed just a .138 average in 25 games. Overall, his line was .233/.322/.455, and he continued to show good power with 18 doubles, 20 homers and 59 RBIs in 98 games.

He made his major league debut for the Dodgers on May 28, 2019. His first big league homer, hit on June 1st, was a walk-off shot, hit off Hector Neris of the Philadelphia Phillies to give Los Angeles a 4-3 win. He hit another walk-off homer, this one a three-run shot delivered as a pinch-hitter, against the Colorado Rockies on June 23rd. It was the third straight game in a which a Dodgers rookie had delivered a walk-off homer, with Matt Beaty and Alex Verdugo having preceded him. In the five games through August 16th that year, the Dodgers set a record by hitting at least four home runs in each of the games, and Smith did his part by slugging homers in three of the five games.

On October 8, 2020, he became the first player in Dodgers history to have a five-hit game in the postseason when he accomplished the feat in the clinching game of the Division Series against the San Diego Padres. He had hit .289 in 37 games during the pandemic-shortened season, with 8 homers, 25 RBIs and an OPS+ of 162. He was a major contributor to the Dodgers' winning their first championship since 1988, first with his performance in the Division Series, when he hit .455 in the three games, then with a magic moment in Game 5 of the NLCS against the Atlanta Braves on October 18th, when he hit a three-run homer against his namesake, pitcher Will Smith, in the 6th inning. Atlanta was leading the series, three games to one, and was ahead 2-1 at the time of the blast, which turned the series around: the Dodgers won the game, 7-3, and the next two as well to advance to the World Series, where they defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in six games. He only hit .167 in the World Series, but the important thing was that he started all of the games the Dodgers played on the way to the title and handled catching duties flawlessly.

In 2021, he topped the 20-homer mark for the first time, finishing with 25 to go along with a batting average of .258 and 76 RBIs in 130 games, for an OPS+ of 127. He led the National League in one offensive category, although it was not the most glamorous one as he notched 11 sacrifice flies. After being held hitless in the Wild Card Game, he had another excellent Division Series, this time against the San Francisco Giants who had managed to finish one game ahead of a juggernaut Dodgers team in the NL West, hitting .333 with 2 doubles and 2 homers. He then went 5 for 23 with a solo homer in a repeat engagement with the Braves in the NLCS, but this time it was the Braves who came out ahead. In 2022, he basically repeated his numbers from the previous season, hitting .260 in 137 games, with24 homers and 87 RBIs, for an OPS+ of 124. However, things did not go as well in the postseason, as the Dodgers were prevented from making another deep run when they were upset by the Padres in the Division Series; he went 3 for 16 with 2 doubles in the four games.

In 2023, Smith made the All-Star team for the first time, and could argue that the honor should have come earlier as he had been recognized as one of the top catchers in the game since the Dodgers' World Series win three years earlier. Ironically, he failed to hit 20 homers that season, finishing with 19, and he still managed to drive in 76 runs in spite of the fact four different teammates were batting ahead of him and clearing the bases by collecting 100 or more ribbies each. His OPS+ was once again above 100, at 114, although that made it the lowest of his career - a reflection of how good a player he had been in his first five seasons. The Dodgers handily won another division title, but once again were ambushed in the postseason, this time by the Arizona Diamondbacks who pounded on their pitchers to sweep the Division Series in three games. He went 5 for 12 with two extra-base hits in the series. In 2024, he started the season by going 5 for 10 during the two-game season-opening series against the Padres in South Korea, then on March 27th, the eve of stateside Opening Day and of his 29th birthday, the Dodgers rewarded him with a ten-year contract extension worth $140 million. The deal included a signing bonus of $30 million, and a deferred portion to be paid out annually from 2034 to 2043. On July 5th, he had the first three-homer game of his career to lead the Dodgers to an 8-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers at Dodger Stadium. He was just the fourth catcher in franchise history with such a game, following Roy Campanella, Mike Piazza and Yasmani Grandal. After hitting .362 in March/April, he had struggled a bit the following two months, hitting .208, before starting July with a bang. He homered again in his first at-bat the next day, a two-run shot off Freddy Peralta, tying the National League and American League record accomplished by a number of players. He almost claimed the record for himself in his next at-bat, but CF Blake Perkins caught his fly ball at the warning track.

He is not to be confused with a number of other players named Will or Willie Smith, including the pitcher who was still active when he reached the major leagues.

Notable Achievements[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Jack Harris (Los Angeles Times): "How the Dodgers' Will Smith became one of baseball's best catchers", Yahoo! Sports, July 11, 2023. [1]
  • Bob Nightengale: "The fresh prince of Chavez Ravine: Rookie catcher Will Smith makes his mark as Dodgers push for a title", USA Today, September 4, 2019. [2]
  • Manny Randhawa: "Where there's a Will (Smith), there's a way: 5 straight years with a title", mlb.com, October 31, 2024. [3]
  • Juan Toribio: "Will Smith, Dodgers agree to 10-year extension", mlb.com, March 27, 2024. [4]
  • Juan Toribio: "With 3-homer game, Smith states his case for recognition", mlb.com, July 6, 2024. [5]
  • Juan Toribio: "Smith performs rare feat, then Vargas' pinch-hit blast wins it", mlb.com, July 6, 2024. [6]

Related Sites[edit]

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