{"id":26613,"date":"2019-11-14T19:13:07","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T00:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=26613"},"modified":"2019-11-14T19:13:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T00:13:07","slug":"atlanta-braves-sign-lhp-will-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/11\/14\/atlanta-braves-sign-lhp-will-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Braves Sign LHP Will Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Atlanta Braves Sign LHP Will Smith<\/h2>\n<p>After coming off their division-winning season, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/atlanta-braves\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> already have made moves to improve their bullpen as they signed southpaw <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=smithwi04,smithwi05,smith-084wil,smith-082wil,smith-080wil&amp;search=Will+Smith&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Will Smith<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong> Smith signed a three-year contract worth $39 million and with an option for 2023 worth $13 million. The team also has a $1 million buyout in the contract.<\/p>\n<p>Smith came from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/san-francisco-giants\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Giants<\/a> where he saved 34 games in 63 appearances. He had a 6-0 record with a 2.76 ERA in 2019. He also struck out 96 batters while walking 21 and held his opponents to a .196 batting average including .157 to left-handed batters.<\/p>\n<p>Smith has been one of the best relievers in baseball since he joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/milwaukee-brewers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> bullpen in 2014. He got his career started in 2012 for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/kansas-city-royals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> before being traded to Milwaukee for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/aokino01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Nori Aoki<\/strong><\/a> just before the 2014 season and that&#8217;s where he became a valuable reliever in the league. He was seen as a reliable member of the Brewers bullpen and was even promoted to being a set-up man for the team.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, at the trade deadline, He was dealt to the Giants in their push to the playoffs. The Giants did make the playoffs that season but were defeated by the eventual World Series champions <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/chicago-cubs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicago Cubs<\/a>. However, Smith would become a mainstay in the Giants bullpen for the next three seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Smith will actually be returning home as he is from Newnan, GA, a 30-minute drive South from Atlanta. He also will be joining his teammate from San Francisco as he will be reunited with Braves closer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/melanma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Mark Melancon<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong> Smith is expected to be the set-up guy for the Atlanta bullpen.<\/p>\n<h3>Tommy John Surgery<\/h3>\n<p>Will Smith did undergo <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Tommy John<\/strong><\/a> surgery before the 2017 season and missed the entirety of the campaign. He returned in 2018 and assumed the role of set up man then becoming the closer. In 2019, he was named to the National League All-Star team as he was the lone Giants representative.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atlanta Braves Sign LHP Will Smith After coming off their division-winning season, the Atlanta Braves already have made moves to improve their bullpen as they signed southpaw Will Smith. Smith signed a three-year contract worth $39 million and with an option for 2023 worth $13 million. The team also has a $1 million buyout in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3254,"featured_media":26631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[48,305],"class_list":["post-26613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-featured","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-will-smith"],"modified_by":"Jared Cantatore","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}