Dodgers: Underlying numbers behind Will Smith, how the ‘Fresh Prince’ grew stale

How to Potentially Correct it

He’s had almost entirely the same underlying numbers in terms of his quality of contact, so how can he gain that lost batting average and lost power output back?

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For one, he needs to cut down on the strikeouts, that will at least give him more balls in play from which to reach base on.

Beyond strikeouts, he may want to try and move away from the flyball. He does not need to hit eight home runs in a month to be valuable, one or two or three could suffice, especially if that means pulling the batting average up over .100 into the mid-.200s like Dodgers fans saw during his peak.

But overall, even if he can’t start hitting more groundballs or line drives, and if he keeps his over-30% punchout rate, he still has been wildly unlucky. If you hit the ball as hard as he does in the air as often as he does, you should not have a goose egg in the homer column, and you should not have a BABIP below .150.

As long as the Dodgers front office, management, and clubhouse stick with their young catcher, he, like Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager, could begin to heat up just when the team needs his bat the most.