It took much longer than anyone would’ve expected at the start of the 2021 regular season, but the New York Mets’ offense is finally performing up to expectations. A number of hitters have enjoyed a prosperous month of July, and outfielder Dominic Smith is one of those dudes.
Through 86 plate appearances this month, Smith is slashing .263/.337/513 with five home runs, and 14 RBI, which susses out to a 132 wRC+. Most of these numbers are among the best he’s produced in any month so far this season. For some of the counting stats, he was able to outperform them with quite a bit of time left before the calendar flips to August this upcoming weekend.
What’s been interesting for Dom is his monthly progression showed that this particular performance in July didn’t come out of nowhere — he was just building up to it slowly. In addition to showing our work to back up this statement, we’ll also dig deeper to see where Smith’s game elevated throughout the past four months to get him to this point.
The Slow Build to a Hot July
In the shortened season of 2020, which was a true breakout campaign for Dom, he never posted a monthly wRC+ below 100 (129 in July, 189 in August, 139 in September). In 2021, though, it took him until June to finally get his offensive performance over that benchmark for the first time. Like the rest of the Mets’ offense, the left-handed hitter slogged through an anemic month of April. Through 71 plate appearances, Smith slashed just .206/.225/.324 with four extra-base hits (two doubles, two homers), and eight RBI. That all led to a 50 wRC+.
Among players with at least 70 plate appearances in April, Dom’s wRC+ was among the 20 worst in all of baseball. Although it wasn’t the kind of start he was hoping for after a stellar 2020, the only way he could really go from there was up. And thankfully, he did exactly that. Here’s how his OPS, home run, RBI, and wRC+ numbers have looked so far through each month of the 2021 season.
It feels kind of rare to get such a straight upward trajectory as Smith has done to this point in the season, and it’s likely only been possible because April was so bad. Watching it continue to head in its current direction over the final two months would be cool, though.
Getting The Batted-Ball Profile Under Control
After seeing this type of monthly progression, the next natural question usually is, “OK, so what did he do to get here?”
I’m glad you asked.
If we simply look at Smith’s batted-ball profile from 2020 and what he’s done so far in 2021, they don’t look much different. Most of what he’s done this season is either slightly better than the year prior, or at least in the same neighborhood. Take a look for yourself:
As we all know, though, that only tells a small fraction of a story that’s included many twists and turns. The upward trajectory isn’t nearly as direct as Dom’s numbers in the first section above, but it’s clear to see he’s done a ton of heavy lifting since June 1st to get himself to where he currently is.
Smith’s pull rate from the past two months (44.6% in June and 41.1% in July) has been among his best months in 2021. Combined with the rise in hard contact, it mirrors what he did last year in those departments (44.4% pull rate and 37.8% hard-hit rate) en route to being one of baseball’s best hitters.
And His Plate Discipline, Too
There’s no way around it — Smith likes to swing the bat. After posting a 51.9% swing rate in 2020, that number is up at 50.0% again this season. That 2020 number included a 37.1% chase rate, but also a 73.1% swing rate on strikes, which was a single-season career-high mark. Judging from how Dom’s plate-discipline numbers progressed through each month, it took him a little while to get that aggressive within the strike zone again, along with making the right kind of contact.
As we can see here, Smith’s swing rate on strikes in July is easily the highest of any month this season, while his chase rate is the lowest of any month this season. Should it be surprising that from a results standpoint that July has been his best month? No, definitely not. This was really the first domino that had to fall for everything else discussed above to fall into place as it has.
Smith is producing like he did last year, and New York’s offense is finally rolling after being a below-average unit through the first half of the season. Even if the pitching staff falters in any particular game, now it doesn’t feel as if any kind of deficit is out of reach, and that’s because everyone has caught fire at around the same time. Isn’t it great when that happens?
As Dom puts the finishing touches on a terrific July, let’s hope he can carry that momentum into August and September as a crucial part of this lineup.
