Players · S · Pitcher · 2024 regular season

Will Smith

Kansas City Royals American League Central

Age: 35
B/T: R/L
Height: 6' 5"
Weight: 255 lb
Number: #13

Born: July 10, 1989 in Newnan, GA, United States
MLB debut: May 23, 2012
Drafted: 2008, round 7
College: Gulf Coast CC
High school: Northgate
Salary, 2024: $5M

dbWAR: 7.7
IP: 41.1
ERA: 6.53
FIP: 5.27
K/9: 6.3
FIP−: 129

Will Smith was a relief pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. In 2024 he struck out 29 batters over 41.1 innings across 45 appearances, going 0-4. His ERA of 6.53 was 60.1% higher than the league average of 4.08 — the worst on his team, and 510th of 541 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 5.27 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 23.7% of swings (11.1% of every pitch he threw), walked 8.1% of the batters he faced and struck out 15.6%. His -0.3 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2024 regular season.

FIP5.27

K/96.3

WHIP1.45

WAR-.3

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2024	KC	45	0	41.1	0	4	1	45	30	29	15	6.53	5.27	1.45	6.3	3.3	160	129	-0.3
2023	TEX	60	0	57.1	2	7	22	44	28	55	17	4.40	3.36	1.06	8.6	2.7	101	78	1.1
2022	ATL/HOU	65	0	59.0	0	3	5	58	26	65	25	3.97	4.26	1.41	9.9	3.8	100	107	0.1
2021	ATL	71	0	68.0	3	7	37	49	26	87	28	3.44	4.17	1.13	11.5	3.7	81	98	0.6
2020	ATL	18	0	16.0	2	2	0	11	8	18	4	4.50	7.38	0.94	10.1	2.3	101	166	-0.4
2019	SF	63	0	65.1	6	0	34	46	20	96	21	2.76	3.23	1.03	13.2	2.9	61	72	1.2
2018	SF	54	0	53.0	2	3	14	37	15	71	15	2.55	2.07	0.98	12.1	2.5	61	50	1.6
2016	MIL/SF	53	0	40.1	2	4	0	31	15	48	18	3.35	3.15	1.21	10.7	4.0	80	75	0.7
2015	MIL	76	0	63.1	7	2	0	52	19	91	24	2.70	2.47	1.20	12.9	3.4	68	62	1.5
2014	MIL	78	0	65.2	1	3	1	62	27	86	31	3.70	3.25	1.42	11.8	4.2	99	87	0.8
2013	KC	19	1	33.1	2	1	0	24	12	43	7	3.24	3.53	0.93	11.6	1.9	84	91	0.4
2012	KC	16	16	89.2	6	9	0	111	53	59	33	5.32	4.66	1.61	5.9	3.3	133	116	0.4

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.

																					Trend
2019	SF	2	2	1	0	2	0	0	0	1.000	1.000	1.000	.000	1.000	0.0%	0.0%	.872	+0.9	502	0.1	—

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Will Smith's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	IP	W	L	SV	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2023 Post	TEX	Postseason total	5	3.1	0	0	0	3	4	1	3	4	10.80	1.80	10.8
		ALDS	1	0.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.00	27.0
		ALCS	2	1.2	0	0	0	2	2	1	2	1	10.80	2.40	5.4
		World Series	2	1.1	0	0	0	1	2	0	1	2	13.50	1.50	13.5
2021 Post	ATL	Postseason total	11	11.0	2	0	6	5	0	0	3	8	0.00	0.73	6.5
		NLDS	3	3.0	0	0	3	2	0	0	1	3	0.00	1.00	9.0
		NLCS	4	4.0	2	0	1	1	0	0	1	4	0.00	0.50	9.0
		World Series	4	4.0	0	0	2	2	0	0	1	1	0.00	0.75	2.3
2020 Post	ATL	Postseason total	7	6.0	2	1	0	2	3	1	3	7	4.50	0.83	10.5
		Wild Card	2	2.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0.00	0.00	19.3
		NLDS	2	2.0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.00	4.5
		NLCS	3	1.2	1	1	0	2	3	1	3	1	16.20	3.00	5.4
2016 Post	SF	NLDS	2	1.1	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.75	6.8
Career		Postseason total · 4 Octobers	25	21.2	4	2	6	11	7	2	9	20	2.91	0.92	8.3

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2024. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	72	68	16	2	2	16	.235	.264	.382	.279	22.2%
vs RHB	114	97	29	5	13	13	.299	.393	.526	.393	11.4%

Pitch sequencing

What Will Smith throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

SliderFour-seamChangeupCurveball

Select a count to see exactly what Will Smith throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Slider	44.7%	301	80.6	2,401	46.5%	31.3%	69	.203	.634
Four-Seam Fastball	29.0%	195	91.2	2,215	43.1%	10.2%	56	.375	1.008
Changeup	14.6%	98	85.8	2,006	33.7%	27.7%	29	.207	.647
Curveball	11.7%	79	76.3	2,158	45.6%	25.0%	11	—	—

Will Smith's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

Compare Will Smith with…

Side by side with up to three others.

Compare with… add up to 3 more players

Will Smith

Similar players

Nearest 2024 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Kenny RosenbergLAA

ERA: 6.00
FIP: 5.46
SO: 17
WAR: -0.2

Very close

Zach PopTOR

ERA: 5.59
FIP: 5.53
SO: 33
WAR: -0.5

Chase AndersonBOS

ERA: 5.40
FIP: 5.69
SO: 42
WAR: -0.7

Brad KellerBOS

ERA: 5.44
FIP: 5.68
SO: 32
WAR: -0.5

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.