{"id":108111,"date":"2025-08-31T04:44:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T04:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/108111\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T04:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T04:44:20","slug":"pavin-smith-unlikely-to-return-in-2025-due-to-quad-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/108111\/","title":{"rendered":"Pavin Smith Unlikely To Return In 2025 Due To Quad Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pavin Smith<\/a> is \u201clikely\u201d done for the 2025 season, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Jacob Gurvis of MLB.com<\/a>) earlier today. Lovullo noted that Smith has not been officially shut down for the season, but after he went on the injured list with a strained left quad yesterday it seems unlikely he\u2019ll be able to get healthy and back up to speed in time to appear before the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Smith, 29, appeared in 87 games for the Diamondbacks this season and has slashed .258\/.362\/.434 with a wRC+ of 122. That\u2019s solid production on paper, but those surface level numbers cover up what was a strange, up-and-down season for the former seventh-overall pick. Smith started the year as one of the hottest hitters in the majors, as he slashed an unbelievable .342\/.373\/.640 through the end of April. Even during that hot stretch, he was striking out at a hefty 28.1% clip but made up for it by hitting for significant power and floating a massive .488 BABIP.<\/p>\n

That batted ball luck was going to run out at some point, however, and his next 48 games saw him hit just .232\/.336\/.384 in 146 plate appearances. His 13.7% walk rate in that stretch remained quite impressive, but his power largely disappeared and he struck out at an ugly 32.9% clip. It wasn\u2019t long after that when Smith suffered an oblique strain that left him sidelined for the majority of July and much of August. He\u2019s appeared in just 14 games in the back half of Arizona\u2019s schedule, and in those limited appearances he\u2019s hit .195\/.244\/.268 with a 32.6% strikeout rate in 46 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

With such a hot start to the year followed by a lengthy cooldown later in the first half, it would be easy to write off Smith\u2019s early-season performance as a simple flash in the pan. There could certainly be merit to that assessment, but it\u2019s also worth noting that his injury-marred second half left him with little opportunity to make adjustments in order to respond to those struggles he began to have after the calendar flipped to May. In conjunction with Smith\u2019s brilliant partial season in 2024, where he slashed .272\/.371\/.568 in 97 plate appearances after the All-Star break, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess what sort of production the Diamondbacks will be able to get out of Smith next year. It seems likely he could be tasked with sharing time at first base with Tyler Locklear<\/a> in at least some capacity, though Locklear\u2019s .169\/.256\/.247 slash line in 23 games for Arizona this year hasn\u2019t exactly inspired confidence to this point.<\/p>\n

In the short term, Smith\u2019s at-bats at DH will be handled by Ketel Marte<\/a>. That\u2019s because, as Lovullo noted to reporters (including Gurvis) this evening, Marte is dealing with what the manager described as \u201cfatigue\u201d in his right forearm. That forearm issue has led the Snakes to play Marte out of the DH spot in each of the past two games rather than play him at his usual position of second base. With Jordan Lawlar<\/a> now on the roster to get increased reps at the hot corner, perhaps more DH time for Marte down the stretch could mean additional opportunities for Blaze Alexander<\/a> to remain in the lineup even when Lawlar is playng. Alexander has hit a respectable .234\/.331\/.441 in 49 games this year while splitting time between second and third base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pavin Smith is \u201clikely\u201d done for the 2025 season, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters (including Jacob Gurvis of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,7815,591,33767,85],"class_list":["post-108111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ketel-marte","tag-mlb","tag-pavin-smith","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}