First baseman Dominic Smith elected free agency rather than accept his outright assignment to Triple-A Louisville after being designated for assignment by the Reds, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He can now sign with any club for the remaining three weeks of the regular season. However, Smith would not be postseason-eligible for a new club, and non-contenders may prefer to give those at-bats to a younger player who can be controlled beyond the current season. Smith, who has more than six years of MLB service, would become a free agent again at season’s end.
Smith’s time with the Reds proved quite brief. The 29-year-old appeared in only nine games and batted .192/.276/.269 in a tiny sample of 29 plate appearances before he was designated for assignment and passed through waivers unclaimed. The bulk of his 2024 season was spent in a Red Sox uniform. Boston signed Smith back in May after Triston Casas sustained a rib fracture and gave the longtime Mets first baseman 84 games and 278 plate appearances as their regular first baseman while Casas was shelved. Smith held his own with a .237/.317/.390 slash that was a bit below league-average in that time (96 wRC+), but the Sox moved on once Casas was healthy.
A former first-round pick (No. 11 overall) by the Mets, Smith long ranked among their top prospects prior to his debut and looked to be delivering on that status in 2019-20, when he hit .299/.366/.571 and belted 21 homers in a combined 396 plate appearances across those two seasons.
In the four seasons since that impressive showing, Smith’s bat has wilted. He admitted after the fact that he’d tried to play through a small tear of the labrum in his right shoulder during his 2021 season, which understandably didn’t go well. An ankle injury the following season further hobbled Smith. His numbers in 2023-24 ticked back up a bit, but Smith’s offensive output in each of these past two seasons has nonetheless checked in below-average. Overall, since that potential 2019-20 breakout, Smith has slashed .241/.311/.360 between four teams (Mets, Nats, Red Sox, Reds).
I mean hey, this is why you don’t play through injury…no matter if you think you’re “tough” or not, it leads to a career downfall…well…not like he was good anyway, he took advantage of the small sample size in 2020, and the juiced balls in 2019.
Fembot – I’ll take Dom’s .237/.317/.390 over what Casas has done the last 8 games (.083/.241/.083) any day of the week!
I would agree with that IF casas didn’t have such a high ceiling, he has bad stretches, but he has MUCH more upside than dom smith.
Fembot – I totally agree! I think the rib pain is increasing, which is causing his poor performance.
He should be fine next year, but for the rest of this year ….. probably not gonna be very productive.
Casas has also made a number of plays at 1B defensively over the past week that Smith never would have.
agreed, cant wait to see how he does…despite me being a jays fan XD
Ken – Agreed, Casas has been quite good at 1B.
Overall, you think Casas is better with the glove than Smith?
He doesn’t hit for enough power or contact for that matter and can only DH/1B. We saw that he couldn’t handle LF while with the Mets. And he’s not exactly a stud in the field at 1B either.
He’s got future Oryx Buffalo written all over him
That’s if he still has any of that $12.6 million. Hopefully he does.
Would be upgrade for Brewers split with Hoskins. Bauers has got to go. .195 BA and 35%K rate. And Murphy bats him 3rd!! No wonder Cardinals intentionally walked Chourio twice last series.
I don’t know how Bauers is still on their roster. He’s dragging them down and shouldn’t be anywhere near the lineup, much less hitting 3rd.
Would Smith be eligible with Boston, if something happened that they needed him again and they made it to the post-season?
No
Armam – Yes, but that postseason won’t be until at least 2026.
Buoyed by kids like Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Nick Yo….oops. Sorry.
Never the same after he broke his foot.
he was never really great anyway, he was a juiced ball merchant.
“Never the same after broke his foot”…I know, right?….The same thing happened to me; I broke my foot and injured my finger in both “Little League” and “Pony league”.
Before that I was on a clear trajectory to become a First ballot MLB Hofer. It’s uncanny and ironic how many of us HOF locks get derailed by injuries and are “never the same”. Dom Smith was clearly on pace to become a first ballot hofer in the year 2043 or so.
I could easily see Dom Smith getting around the same ratio of HOF votes as Derek Jeter or Mariano Riviera. That’s just how good Dom was until he broke his foot and was sadly, “never the same”.
lmaaaooo that’s exactly how this dude was thinking when he made that comment XD
Rather him than Singleton