DataBaseball
2026
Seth Smith headshot

RF · 2017

Seth Smith

Age
35
B/T
L/L
Height
6' 3"
Weight
210 lb
Number
#7
Born
September 30, 1982 in Jackson, MS, USA
MLB debut
September 16, 2007
dbWAR
3.9
3 season(s)
PA
373
AVG
.258
OBP
.340
SLG
.433
wRC+
107
100 = avg

Seth Smith is a right fielder for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2017 he hit 13 home runs and knocked in 32 RBIs, notching 85 hits across 373 plate appearances in 106 games. His batting average was .258, 1.0% higher than the league average of .255. He reached base at a .340 clip and slugged .433, for an OPS of .774, 3.1% higher than the league mark of .750 — 6th of 14 on his team, and 164th of 435 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.8 mph off the bat, hit 46.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.7% of them and made contact on 79.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 107 wRC+ puts his offence 7% above average. That comes to 1.0 dbWAR — +3.5 runs with the bat, +0.2 on the bases, -5.3 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2017.

wRC+107
wOBA.336
ISO.176
BB%9.7%
WAR1.0

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2017. These four terms sum to +10.8 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+3.5Baserunning+0.2Position-5.3Replacement+12.4
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

1.60.80.0151617

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
201710637385133223679.258.340.433.176.3019.7%21.2%.336+3.51071.0
201613543894166304889.249.342.415.167.28211.0%20.3%.334+4.41101.2
201513245298124204799.248.330.443.195.29810.4%21.9%.336+7.01181.6

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP26246125.250.308.500.34519.2%
vs RHP34730679123474.258.343.428.33521.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 242 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 220 tracked batted balls in 2017. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
7.7%
17 barrels
Exit velocity
90.8
mph average
Max exit velo
112.4
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
46.8%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
41.4%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.3°
average
Barrel rate7.7%
Exit velocity90.8 mph
Hard hit rate46.8%
Contact rate79.4%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2017.

.259.167.139.200.33315 AB.33315 AB.43816 AB.29434 AB.27836 AB.25020 AB.28938 AB.24233 AB.23113 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .254.

Situational hitting

How Seth Smith hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations373.258.340.433.336
Bases empty2412175711112051.263.336.465.347
Runner on first6455151289.273.375.382.341
Runners on132113282211628.248.348.372.315
RISP685813119819.224.324.362.288

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2017.

Head to head

Put Seth Smith beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Seth Smith

Similar players

Nearest 2017 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.