Of the eight prospects the Mariners sent to the Arizona Fall League this year, catching prospect Boston Smith was the biggest name sent by Seattle and has occupied the lion\u2019s share of the headlines. But you should know about a different Smith, as well: Adam Smith, the 26-year-old reliever who makes up the other half of the Mariners\u2019 AFL \u201cMr. and Mr. Smith\u201d battery.<\/p>\n
Acquired when the Mariners purchased his contract from the independent Lancaster Stormers last May to fill out Everett\u2019s bullpen, Smith quickly overpowered the youngsters at High-A and earned a trip to Double-A Arkansas midway through the season, where his strikeouts fell and his walks shot up. Smith has a prototypical pitcher\u2019s frame at a strongly-built 6\u20192\u201d, but relies more on spin and location than velocity to outfox hitters. On the stat sheet, nothing about Smith stands out: he didn\u2019t rack up eye-watering strikeout numbers in Arkansas, and he\u2019s carrying an ERA north of 5 in the Fall League.<\/p>\n
But on a trip to the AFL last month, I watched Smith pitch the most dominant inning of the night in a lopsided Peoria win. Hitters simply weren\u2019t reading the ball out of his hand, swinging ugly or backing away from pitches that landed squarely in the zone.<\/p>\n
So far, Smith has appeared in seven games in the AFL, pitching 6.2 innings, over which time he is yet to issue a walk while striking out 10, leading to his selection to the Fall Stars game.<\/p>\n
Smith was initially drafted by the Padres in the 14th round in 2021 out of UNC Wilmington, where he spent four years before spending one year in the Red Sox system. He then transitioned to indy ball, which is where the Mariners found him.<\/p>\n
As a former starter, Smith has a full arsenal at his disposal as a reliever: a four-seam, sinker, cutter, changeup, and sweeper. He mixes his pitches effectively, keeping hitters off-balance, but says he relies more heavily on his off-speed, since he\u2019s not blessed with eye-popping velocity on his fastball. Of his off-speed pitches, he has a clear favorite.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say I get most of the ugly swings from my sweeper,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of my go-to, the old reliable. I learned it about two years ago, and then once I really figured out how to use it, I haven\u2019t gone away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith says in his time with the Mariners he\u2019s learned to not be afraid of throwing in the zone, buying into the \u201cdominate the zone\u201d philosophy and trusting in what the organization has told him about what makes him good. Ironically, that confidence to throw in the zone despite not having huge velocity and lean in to his identity as a pitcher who pounds the zone has caused his velocity to tick up into the mid-90s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe velocity aspect early in my career wasn\u2019t really there, and being a part of two different organizations prior where they strive for only velocity just didn\u2019t fit my motto because I was more of an in-zone pitcher, get a lot of strikes, and just average velocity. Whereas here, being able to embrace the identity of being in the zone all the time has translated into my velocity being where it\u2019s at now.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just the uptick in strikeouts or velocity that Smith is grateful for. He\u2019s happy to be with the Mariners because he feels like the organization has a clear direction for how to make him successful, a vision that\u2019s communicated clearly and consistently.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s got a plan here, and they\u2019re solely driven on that plan, and everyone\u2019s bought into the plan, which is that communication aspect where everyone is in tune with what\u2019s going on,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think it makes it a lot easier for us as players when we\u2019re communicated with on a daily basis about what we need to do, maybe in our routine or changing other things up. Everything is communicated. It\u2019s not like we have to find out a few months later, like, oh, we\u2019ve been actually wanting you to do this, but we didn\u2019t tell you. It\u2019s very upfront.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those are encouraging words to hear from any player in your organization, but especially considering the apparent communication breakdown that hurt the big-league club this year. It\u2019s a reminder of what this organization does well when those avenues of communication are free-flowing and meaningful, a big part of which is identifying players like Adam Smith and helping them become the best version of themselves.<\/p>\n
You can watch Smith pitch in the Fall Stars game on Sunday at 5 PM PT; the game will be broadcast on MLB Network, but you can also stream it on MLB.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of the eight prospects the Mariners sent to the Arizona Fall League this year, catching prospect Boston Smith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,240513,99],"class_list":["post-909437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners-prospects","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909437","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=909437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}