Arizona Diamondbacks: Don’t overlook Pavin Smith’s impressive debut

A former first-round pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Pavin Smith is getting his opportunity to prove his value.

Going into the 2020 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks figured to be possible contenders for a playoff run. Unfortunately, that train has been completely derailed as the Diamondbacks limp their way to the end of the regular season with one of the league’s worst records and a last-place finish in the NL West imminent.

Madison Bumgarner was supposed to lead Arizona’s rotation after signing an $85 million contract, but the three-time World Series champion is 0-4 with a 7.36 ERA and a notable decrease in fastball velocity.

Starling Marte, the other major offseason acquisition for Arizona, played very well, as expected, but was shipped to Miami at the trade deadline.

If there is a silver lining to the 2020 season for the Arizona Diamondbacks, it has been the valuable major league playing time for some of their top prospects and the emergence of starting pitcher Zac Gallen as one of the more underrated arms in the game.

One of those prospects who has seen regular playing time lately is first baseman/outfielder Pavin Smith.

Smith,a. 2017 first-round draft pick out the University of Virginia, has shown an elite strikeout-to-walk rate in his three minor league seasons (150 K/143 BB in 294 career minor league games). However, viewed the lense of a seventh overall pick, Smith hasn’t exactly lived up to expectations thus far.

Swing changes to tap into more power and noted physical changes led to a dominant Double-A campaign last season (146 wRC+, 12 home runs, .291/.370/.466 batting line), but questions still remain as to whether or not Pavin Smith has enough power to be an everyday first baseman in the major leagues.

He entered 2020 ranked 25th on FanGraphs’ list of top Arizona Diamondbacks prospects and now finds himself 28th on MLB Pipeline’s list, but there’s still some optimism surrounding Pavin Smith and his ability to be productive at the major league level.

Smith has played in seven games now for Arizona and has reached base in every single of them and has at least one hit in six of those seven games. Despite going 0-4 against Houston on September 19th, Smith was able to draw a walk in the seventh inning against Astros reliever Josh James to keep his on-base streak alive.

A common knock on Smith is his high groundball rate (between 43.9%-48.8% in each minor league season) and lack of over-the-fence power, but his ability to get on base and rarely strike out is a valuable asset. Adding corner outfielder to his resume also doesn’t hurt, especially on a team now in search of many pieces to become a contender in what has become a very competitive NL West division.

It’s very, very early, but the impressive start out of the gate is an interesting note. Despite his slide down prospect rankings and slow starts down on the farm, perhaps Pavin Smith can put it all together under the bright lights for the Arizona Diamondbacks.