{"id":38118,"date":"2020-09-09T22:07:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T02:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=38118"},"modified":"2020-09-09T22:07:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T02:07:35","slug":"report-giants-sign-justin-smoak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/09\/09\/report-giants-sign-justin-smoak\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: San Francisco Giants Sign Justin Smoak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/san-francisco-giants\/\" target=\"_self\">San Francisco Giants<\/a> have reportedely added one more piece to its puzzle in the form of veteran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smoakju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Justin Smoak<\/strong><\/a>. The 33-year-old was released by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/milwaukee-brewers\/\" target=\"_self\">Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> earlier in September, but San Francisco sees some value as it targets a wild card birth. The report regarding the signing came Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A day after being released by the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Brewers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Brewers<\/a>, Justin Smoak has already landed with a new team: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tkpiumLbvl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/tkpiumLbvl<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/INDOJCEQBm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/INDOJCEQBm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mlbtraderumors\/status\/1303770308793585664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 9, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Giants Sign Justin Smoak<\/h2>\n<p>Smoak was not good with Milwaukee to start 2020. The veteran switch-hitter had 126 plate appearances in 33 games. He posted a .186\/.262\/.381 slash line with five home runs, 40 strikeouts, ten walks and a career-worst 69 OPS+. Smoak slashed .208\/.342\/.406 with a 101 OPS+ with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> in 2019. That makes his collapse with the Brewers all the more disappointing. The team was expecting him to help boost an already-competitive roster but that did not happen.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/oakland-athletics\/\" target=\"_self\">Oakland Athletics<\/a> originally drafted him in the 16th-round out of high school in the 2005 Amateur Draft, but he elected to attend college and improve his draft stock. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/texas-rangers\/\" target=\"_self\">Texas Rangers<\/a> drafted him in the first round of the 2008 Amateur Draft. He debuted for the Rangers in 2010 but was traded to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/seattle-mariners\/\" target=\"_self\">Seattle Mariners<\/a> almost immediately as a 23-year-old. Smoak&#8217;s most productive years came after the Blue Jays claimed him off waivers in 2014. He hit .237\/.338\/.459 with 117 home runs for the Canadian franchise. His overall numbers are .229\/.322\/.419 with 196 home runs in 4744 plate appearances.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>This is purely a depth move for the Giants. They have been very solid at both first base and designated hitter in 2020. The team has received a combined 3.0 WAR between two positions. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/beltbr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brandon Belt<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/florewi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Wilmer Flores<\/strong><\/a> have been the anchors at those two positions and both have an OPS+ of 125 or better. Smoak won&#8217;t replace either of them, but he could take over backup duties from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sandopa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Pablo Sandoval<\/strong><\/a>. The 33-year-old has been below replacement value in 2020 so San Francisco likely sees Smoak as a low-cost option for the season&#8217;s final weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Main\u00a0 Photo: <a id=\"9XzFikljRVlwnmtiXdpItA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1268374036\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'9XzFikljRVlwnmtiXdpItA',sig:'3qCHFKxknSd78QbSP56o6-IVR0JWErAB7ptJgkM8qzg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1268374036',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The San Francisco Giants have reportedely added one more piece to its puzzle in the form of veteran Justin Smoak. The 33-year-old was released by the Milwaukee Brewers earlier in September, but San Francisco sees some value as it targets a wild card birth. The report regarding the signing came Wednesday afternoon. A day after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":38134,"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":[1071,35,31],"tags":[1098,91],"class_list":["post-38118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-news","category-giants","tag-justin-smoak","tag-san-francisco-giants"],"modified_by":"DJ Kleinbard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118","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\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}