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<\/p>\nCLEVELAND \u2014 As Steven Kwan strolled to home plate one morning during spring training a few years ago, teammates wished him luck.<\/p>\n
Kwan was confused. This was a pressure-free at-bat on a back field at the Cleveland Guardians\u2019 Arizona complex, with some anonymous prospect standing on the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis last name is literally Smith,\u201d Kwan thought. \u201cHow crazy good could this guy be?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer to Kwan\u2019s question came in the form of a mind-melting fastball that seemed to teleport from the pitcher\u2019s fingertips to the catcher\u2019s glove.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like he was releasing it in front of my face,\u201d Kwan said. \u201cIt was special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pitcher was Cade Smith, an unheralded, undrafted reliever who was still learning everything his 6-foot-5 frame and his partnership with Cleveland\u2019s pitching whisperers had to offer.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s on everyone\u2019s radar now.<\/p>\n
This month, Smith\u2019s peers elected him to his first All-Star Game. They\u2019ve witnessed firsthand his upper-90s fastball and the way it seems to glitch its way to home plate. Or they\u2019ve gawked at his gaudy strikeout total and his league-leading saves figure in his first full season in the closer role. Or they\u2019ve played alongside him and have marveled at his discipline, work ethic and the near-robotic manner in which he plods through his daily regimen all so he can overbear whichever hitters stand in his path in the ninth inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s as good of a pitcher as there is in the big leagues,\u201d said Guardians catcher Austin Hedges.<\/p>\n
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball revamped the 2020 draft. There were only five rounds, followed by a 48-hour moratorium, and then a free-agent free-for-all beginning at 9 a.m. ET on a Sunday. Teams could ink any undrafted player to a signing bonus capped at $20,000.<\/p>\n
Cleveland\u2019s front office split up its big board and cold-called agents, players and family members. It resembled a college recruiting process. One Guardians executive remembers calling an agent to ask if their client would sign for $20,000. The agent replied: \u201cHe might, but just so you know, he just got off a FaceTime with David Ortiz.\u201d The executive had no counter to that sort of power play.<\/p>\n
Thankfully for Cleveland, Smith didn\u2019t need to be wooed with a celebrity testimonial. He was dazzled by data and blueprints for a better arsenal.<\/p>\n
The organization knew Smith from his high school days in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Smith had pitched in showcases on U.S. soil, and while they didn\u2019t see him much at the University of Hawai\u2019i at M\u0101noa, they studied enough video of his mechanics to know they wanted him.<\/p>\n
The average team scooped up about six undrafted free agents. Four teams signed at least 10. The Boston Red Sox, with their dignitaries delivering sales pitches, signed 14.<\/p>\n
Cleveland kept a more targeted approach, which appealed to Smith. They weren\u2019t casting a wide net; they had specific motivation for each pursuit.<\/p>\n
Smith was deliberate and meticulous with his process, too. Once teams initiated contact, he conducted background checks on the state of their farm system, their reputation and their ability to develop pitchers. Many undrafted free agents signed within a day or two. Smith took a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ask my wife,\u201d Smith said, \u201cthe way I make decisions is very thorough and probably sometimes painstakingly slow. \u2026 If something does backfire, I\u2019d like to be able to say, \u2018Hey, I did my research, I checked into it and I\u2019m not going to have any regrets for how this blew up in my face.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He took Zoom calls with about five teams, but none lasted longer than his meetings with Cleveland. In all, the two sides spoke for four hours.<\/p>\n
One front-office member, reviewing notes from the interviews, recalled Smith as being \u201cdialed in\u201d to the conversations. After their first call, Smith had asked to connect with a couple of the organization\u2019s pitching coaches and the director of physical development. The club\u2019s evaluators were confident he would capitalize on the resources at his disposal. That was pivotal, because they felt he was \u201craw\u201d in understanding his mechanics and how certain tweaks could make his fastball a lethal pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty clear that these guys are the best at pitching development,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s parents are teachers, but he was convicted in his path forward, and assured them he should forgo his senior year of college to jump to the professional ranks. He worried about having enough bandwidth for both his biology studies and baseball, and he didn\u2019t want to join the overflow of players entering the 2021 draft after the abbreviated 2020 edition.<\/p>\n
After a weeklong probe, he chose Cleveland over Seattle, passing on the Mariners\u2019 proximity to Abbotsford. He was Cleveland\u2019s fourth and final undrafted free-agent addition.<\/p>\n
Once he joined the organization, Smith consumed every morsel of input from coaches and analysts, who helped to adjust his release point, boost his velocity and craft pitch grips and shapes that would work in harmony.<\/p>\n
He had doubts along the way, he stressed. He was throwing 88-92 mph when he arrived in the organization. Now, he throws 95-99 mph with elite extension that adds zip to whatever the radar gun claims, plus a sweeper and a devastating splitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou design a process, and he\u2019s going to do it perfectly,\u201d said Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman.<\/p>\n
Smith seized the attention of the team\u2019s decision-makers during spring training in 2024, enough to land him on the roster bubble. The Guardians canvassed the waiver wire in the final days of camp, leaving Smith in limbo. But the morning of Opening Day, as he played cards with his siblings in his San Francisco hotel room, Smith learned he had earned a roster spot.<\/p>\n
He debuted two days later, and with each stifling heater he heaved, he became slightly less anonymous. Hedges was behind the plate as Smith struck out five over two scoreless innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know he had that type of a fastball,\u201d Hedges said. \u201cI\u2019m seeing 95 or whatever. I\u2019m like, \u2018That\u2019s a good heater.\u2019 But it\u2019s blowing everybody away, and I\u2019m like, \u2018This guy has it. There\u2019s something here. This guy has special stuff.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Had the baseball plan fizzled, Smith would have pursued a career in medicine, perhaps as an eye surgeon.<\/p>\n
Guardians pitcher Slade Cecconi: \u201cI\u2019d want someone like Cade operating on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hedges: \u201cI\u2019d let him do anything. If he felt confident in doing something, I would trust him with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardians reliever Erik Sabrowski: \u201cHe would do everything in his power to figure out how to do it smoothly and effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way he operates. Since he landed only a $20,000 signing bonus and knew he\u2019d earn a meager salary as a minor-leaguer, Smith watched a free course on YouTube and then taught himself how to code so he could help a friend\u2019s brother build websites for some extra cash.<\/p>\n
Cecconi: \u201cHe\u2019s too smart to do anything other than something exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hedges: \u201cHe\u2019s about as smart of a human as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwan:\u00a0\u201cEverything he does is calculated.\u201d<\/p>\n
From arm care to calorie count. Kwan said he watches Smith consume a plate of fruit and greens every day before he tackles his actual pregame meal.<\/p>\n
Kwan: \u201cWe make fun of him for it, like it\u2019s rabbit food. We know every time he has a meal, it\u2019s at an exact time, exactly the right amount of stuff that he needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabrowski: \u201cHis entire day is scripted. Sometimes you feel like you have to drag him down to your level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cecconi: \u201cYou play 10 days in a row on the road, and that last day, it\u2019s pretty easy to just show up, eat a donut and roll through the day. But you\u2019ll never see that out of Cade.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might help explain his consistency on the mound over the past two and a half years. Several members of the front office and coaching staff dubbed Smith the hardest worker in the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been around somebody with more detailed routines,\u201d said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt.<\/p>\n
MLB leaders in fWAR, 2024-26 (relievers)<\/p>\n
1. Cade Smith: 7.1
2. Mason Miller: 6.7
3. Jhoan Duran: 5.3<\/p>\n
MLB leaders in K\/BB rate, 2024-26 (relievers, min. 120 innings)<\/p>\n
1. Cade Smith: 5.70
2. Dylan Lee: 5.34
3. Kevin Kelly: 5.20
4. Emmanuel Clase: 5.14
5. Jhoan Duran: 4.90<\/p>\n
Smith and Mason Miller finished fifth and fourth, respectively, in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2024. They joined a group of 29 other rookie relievers in league history to tally 100 or more strikeouts. They\u2019re two of five relievers in the past 20 years to strike out 100 or more hitters in each of their first two seasons, and they\u2019re both on pace to join Dellin Betances as the only relievers to do so in each of their first three seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, this should be his third All-Star Game,\u201d Vogt said.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s been any hint of a hiccup in Smith\u2019s big-league tenure, it was his transition to the closer role, an assignment thrust upon him last summer when Clase vanished from the team\u2019s plans because of his alleged involvement in a pitch-rigging scheme. For someone as methodical and structured as Smith, shifting to an end-of-game responsibility admittedly required an acclimation period.<\/p>\n
But this is pitching preparation, not retinal surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the things that are important to me for me to be able to keep my body ready to perform, keep my mind ready to perform,\u201d Smith said, \u201cand I have to cling to that with a death grip.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s done that, and it\u2019s earned him a chance to pitch in the spotlight this week in Philadelphia and showcase that the guy named Smith is, in fact, crazy good.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the best reliever in baseball. It\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d said Hedges. \u201cThat guy is an absolute superstar. Probably the most underrated player in baseball. The fact that he isn\u2019t a household name, talked about like Mason Miller, is crazy to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want that guy on the mound over anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 As Steven Kwan strolled to home plate one morning during spring training a few years ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2320,363,99],"class_list":["post-760234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}