Casey Schmitt just might be what the Giants are desperate for ·

24 Jun 2024, 00:00

You are Bart Simpson at the blackboard. You’re gripping the chalk and writing a hundred times, in your neatest penmanship. “I will not get too excited about Casey Schmitt. I will not get too excited about Casey Schmitt.” You’ve been here before.

Just to hammer that point home, NBC Sports Bay Area flashed a graphic of the Giants hitters to have two homers in their first three games: Armando Ríos, John Bowker, Brett Pill, Aramis García, Casey Schmitt. All of them Giants legends in their own special way; all of them combining for a career oWAR that is lower than Madison Bumgarner’s.

A few innings after Schmitt pummelled a long, booming upper-deck homer to give the Giants the lead in an eventual 6-2 win against the Diamondbacks, he got his fourth hit of the night. Suddenly the on-screen graphic had him with Willie McCovey as the only other Giants rookie to have eight hits in his first three games.

Keep scrawling on the chalkboard. “I will not get too excited about Casey Schmitt,” over and over again, because it’s the only way to get it through your head. Getting excited about the first three games of a prospect’s MLB career is like pausing Game 1 of the World Series after a first-pitch strike to go pop some champagne. There is so much baseball left in Schmitt’s career. There is so much baseball left. Don’t get too excited. Not yet.

The stats shifted from Brett Pill to Willie McCovey during the game, yet they still found a way to include a player who was even more impressive.

Casey Schmitt of the @SFGiants is the second MLB player to have at least 8 hits, 4 RBI and 4 runs scored over his first 3 career games (since RBI became an official stat in 1920).

The other is Joe DiMaggio. pic.twitter.com/St6VWc3H1l

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) May 12, 2023

One of the earliest memories I have of becoming a baseball nerd was reading Bill James’ “The Politics of Glory,” where he detailed how it was possible to move goalposts with arbitrary statistics like this. If you want to argue that Al Oliver should be in the Hall of Fame, note that he’s the only player not in the Hall with 2,500 hits, 200 homers and a .300 career average. Eight hits, four RBI, and four runs scored in three games … c’mon, what is that? It’s an entirely arbitrary set of stats.

Yet it’s right there, in internet ink: Joe DiMaggio. Schmitt is up there with McCovey and DiMaggio now. Maybe he should stylize his last name as ScHmitt. This feels different. This feels different.

You remember the shots of Kevin Frandsen’s family when he had three hits in his major-league debut, and then you remember that Frandsen’s career was a tremendous success story when compared to most prospects. There are tens of thousands of prospects who wish they were as successful in the majors as Frandsen. That’s how tough baseball is.

Most prospects can’t chuck a baseball like this, though:

Casey Schmitt can cut it loose 😤

This throw from the fourth-ranked @SFGiants prospect registered 92.7 mph, making it the second-fastest infield assist in the Majors this year: pic.twitter.com/aKMDK8Qh8H

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) May 12, 2023

There are stats, and then there are advanced stats. Then there are niche stats that mean more than any of them. My favorite one is MMKsW+, which stands for “Made Mike Krukow say Wheeewwwwww.” That throw registered a perfect 100 MMKsW+, which almost no rookie has ever done. Not even Joe DiMaggio.

There are other reasons why the Giants defeated the Diamondbacks on Thursday night. Alex Cobb, the surprising workhorse and co-ace of the staff, was brilliant again, allowing exactly zero runs for the third time in his last four starts and doing things that Giants starters haven’t done for years. When Cobb left the game after walking a batter in the eighth inning, Tyler Rogers came in and threw five pitches, all for strikes, with the last one being an inning-ending double play. It was a team effort.

Casey Schmitt, though.

Think about the role that a masterclass defender like Schmitt could play on the Giants if he hits. If he’s at third, he’s pairing with Brandon Crawford to keep a side of the field off-limits to would-be singles. If he’s at short, he’s pairing with a surprisingly Gold Glove-adjacent J.D. Davis to do the same thing. Manager Gabe Kapler is saying Schmitt will get time at second base, and he might be talented enough to skip right past the growing-pains penalty that most elite defenders rack up when they learn a new position. It’s hard to see how he’s not around for a good, long while.

And it’s at this point that my robotic brain and icy heart have some cruel caveats for you. The bulk of Schmitt’s minor-league success last season came in A-ball. His OPS in Triple-A Sacramento this season was .762, which is below the league average. He’s a teensy bit old for a prospect, just a couple months younger than Juan Soto. His career strikeout-to-walk ratio suggests that he’ll have a rough counter-adjustment to make when the league adjusts to him.

It’s hard to fake a home run like this, though:

It’s hard to fake a homer like that and a rocket throw on the same night, for sure. Some of the stats up there are predicated on the number of hits for Schmitt, and one of those hits came on a chopper off the dirt in front of home plate, so let’s cool the McCovey-DiMaggio-ScHmitt comparisons for now, but it’s still hard to fake the raw talent that Schmitt has shown.

There will be adjustments. The last time the Giants had a right-handed swing-first, power-potential, Gold Glove-candidate prospect at third base like this, he hit .198 in his first 220 games. There’s a lot about Schmitt’s profile that suggests that there might be a two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of development. Crawford didn’t have an OPS+ better than the league average until he was 27 years old, so if you’re believing in Schmitt taking the league by storm, you’re expecting him to be better than Crawford.

Which, sure, he might be. It’s not likely, historically speaking, but that’s the kind of start we’re talking about. It’s the kind of start that’s less tethered to “prospects will break your heart” and more tethered to “most baseball players can’t do that.” Most baseball players can’t throw a baseball like Schmitt. The offensive potential is an open question, but the defensive talent is unmistakable, and that gives him a much, much higher ceiling than most. I’m old enough to remember Matt Dominguez, so let’s stop short of guarantees for how a glove wizard can contribute to a major-league team, but this feels different.

Of course, baseball championships aren’t won with feels. They’re won with talent, dumb luck and hilarious coincidences, like the baseball gods intended. There’s still a lot to write about the Casey Schmitt story.

But what a first page. What an incredible, “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams” first line of a career. There are games that stick in your head, long past the point of reason. Off the top of my head, I’m talking about Shawn Estes pitching a gem and hitting a home run in a 20-run blowout against the Expos. It’s Brandon Crawford summoning memories of Rennie Stennett. Heck, it’s Chris Heston throwing a no-hitter, as enjoyable and surprising as baseball has a right to be.

It also might be ushering in a new era of Giants baseball or a new direction for the 2023 Giants or a Montana-to-Young kind of shortstop succession or …

But it sure is fun, and nobody will ever take that away from you. This is the stuff that baseball dreams are made of.

(Photo: Norm Hall / Getty Images)

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Casey Schmitt just might be what the Giants are desperate for

You are Bart Simpson at the blackboard. Youre gripping the chalk and writing a hundred times, in your neatest penmanship. I will not get too excited about Casey Schmitt. I will not get too excited about Casey Schmitt. Youve been here before.

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