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by Cary Osborne
In just five seasons, just three full seasons, Will Smith has already established himself as one of the most productive catchers in Dodger history.
The 28-year-old will have more time to add to that history.
Smith, the now six-year veteran, 2023 All-Star and 2020 World Series champion, has signed a 10-year extension with the Dodgers. It is the longest contract for a catcher in Major League history.
After making his debut with the Dodgers in 2019 and taking over as the everyday catcher with the club in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Smith has become one of the top offensive players at his position.
Smith ranks the following among Major League catchers with at least 75% of their games played at the position from 2021–23:
· Home Runs (68) — first
· RBI (239) — first
· On-base percentage (.355) — first
· Slugging percentage (.465) — first
· OPS (.820) — first
· Walks (177) — first
· Runs (219) — first
· Sacrifice flies (27) — first
· OPS+ (122) — tied for first
· Hits (360) — second
· Total bases (644) — second
· Extra-base hits (141) — second
· Baseball Reference WAR (11.8) — second
Smith will head into the Dodgers’ home opener with 91 career home runs. When he reaches 100, he’ll be the fourth Dodger catcher — minimum 75% games played at the position — to reach the century mark, joining Hall of Famers Roy Campanella (242) and Mike Piazza (177) and Dodger great Steve Yeager (100). Smith, Campanella and Piazza are the only Dodger catchers with at least three 75-RBI seasons.
Of Smith’s 91 home runs, 40 have given the Dodgers a lead, eight have tied a score and three have been of the walk-off variety.
He batted .261/.359/.438/.797 with 19 home runs and 76 RBI in 2023, despite playing much of the season with a rib injury suffered when he was hit by a pitch on April 30.
Statcast defensive metrics from 2023 had Smith 27th out of 42 catchers in catcher framing runs, 16th out of 44 in blocks above average, and tied-for-23rd in catcher’s caught stealing above average.
Will Smith puts emphasis on the term ‘franchise catcher’ with new deal was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.