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The next player on the San Francisco Giants season reviews is left-handed pitcher Drew Smyly.
Season stats
7 games, 5 starts, 26.1 innings, 20 hits, 9 walks, 0 hit by pitch, 2 home runs, 42 strikeouts, 1.101 WHIP
3.42 ERA, 2.01 FIP, 0.4 rWAR, 1.0 fWAR
Status throughout the season
Smyly started the season on the active roster. He was placed on the Injured List on Aug. 2, and activated again on Sept. 10.
Season review
It’s a bummer that we weren’t able to see Smyly play a full season, because what little we saw was utterly sensational.
42 strikeouts in 26.1 innings is ... I’m not sure what adjective to use. Take your pick of two adjectives, one to represent brilliance, and another to represent something being difficult to believe.
Smyly struck out 14.4 hitters per nine innings. To put that in comparison, here are some career highs for single season strikeouts per nine innings:
Tim Lincecum: 10.5
Madison Bumgarner 10.0
Sergio Romo: 13.1
We shouldn’t assume that Smyly would have held that rate if give a full season (or a full 60-game season, that is), but we can’t exactly judge him on the regression that we never got to see, either.
Instead, all we have is a player who was dominant in a short sample. A player who likely would have helped the Giants get into the postseason had he been healthy, or been at the front of a pretty nice deadline deal.
Role in 2021
Smyly has signed a contract with Atlanta, where he’ll play alongside seemingly every other former Giant still playing baseball.
Grade
Ban injuries.
A
Poll
How would you grade Drew Smyly’s season?
This poll is closed
-
36%
A
(43 votes) -
39%
A-/B+
(47 votes) -
11%
B
(14 votes) -
2%
B-/C+
(3 votes) -
0%
C
(1 vote) -
0%
D
(0 votes) -
0%
F
(0 votes) -
8%
Incomplete
(10 votes)