LOS ANGELES -- Umpires might be the only lot of baseball humanity assessed more harshly than young catchers, who are forever judged as Too (Something).
Too Hyper, perhaps.
Too Stubborn.
Too Jumpy. Too Ignorant. Too Slow. Too Emotional. Let's be real about it: Too Whatever the Veteran Pitchers Don't Like.
The Yankees pitchers of 1947 didn't like to throw to future Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, and some of the 1997 Yankees greatly preferred Joe Girardi over Jorge Posada. Pitchers usually get their way -- especially the best pitchers -- and young catchers tend to be the source of a lot of frustration, fairly or not.
What the Dodgers are doing with catcher Will Smith, then, is almost without precedent. We've never seen a serious World Series contender turn over a veteran pitching staff to a rookie catcher late in a season in the way the Dodgers suddenly rely on Smith, who has quickly won over teammates with his advanced skills, his ability to quickly process and utilize information, and his demeanor.
"He's just not fazed," Clayton Kershaw said last weekend. "He seems to take everything in stride. He's got a quiet confidence, like he belongs here, and he's handling it well.
"Coming up as a catcher is not an easy thing. Every team has their different set of systems, analytics, signs to figure out, and he's done a great job taking it all in, learning everybody. He doesn't get overwhelmed. He's the same guy."
Smith's improvement as a hitter has been dramatic, from his freshman year at the University of Louisville, when he hit .221 over 39 homerless games, to his first days in the big leagues, when manager Dave Roberts has sometimes used him in the No. 3 spot. In his first 100 at-bats for the Dodgers, he's batted .290 with 12 homers, and an OPS of 1.095.
But Smith would not be given this kind of opportunity in this particular moment, when the Dodgers are trying to do what they've been unable to do the past two postseasons and prevail in the World Series, without adeptly handling all that comes with being a major league catcher, from the absorption and application of scouting reports to not being Too Annoying for the pitchers.
"I think the other players really buy into him," said Josh Byrnes, the Dodgers' senior vice president of baseball operations, "because there's so much substance to him. Everything he does is for a purpose."
With good reason, because the ground floor of what Will Smith is as a player was constructed over years. He was never an elite prospect in high school, when he played for a small school in a lower classification, 1-A Kentucky Country Day, and it wasn't until his last months at Louisville that scouts began to view him as a possible candidate for first-round selection.
But there was always something in him that appealed to evaluators -- an apparent confidence, Byrnes said, that any struggle or any problem is something that will inevitably be resolved.
"Very coachable," said Dan McDonnell, the head coach at Louisville. "A high IQ, and there is no sense of entitlement in him. When he was a freshman, we had two senior catchers, and he never acted like he was better than them, or that he should've played instead of them. You saw the talent and ability, and he just worked."
In Smith's freshman year, McDonnell gave him a start against Vanderbilt -- a rivalry game, the Battle of the Barrel, as it is known between the two schools. If Louisville wins, then Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin buys dinner for McDonnell at a Cape Cod restaurant, and vice versa if Vanderbilt wins.
It wasn't long after Smith's start against Vanderbilt that McDonnell got a call from USA Baseball, asking about the summer plans for Smith. McDonnell wondered about the roots of their sudden interest. "Tim Corbin says you've got the next Buster Posey," McDonnell was told.
It was not the first time Smith was compared to Posey. That had been said in high school, because Smith and Posey are about the same size, and they share exceptional athleticism for catchers. Their personalities are alike, the one- and two-sentence breakdowns reflecting the seriousness of their work and depth of thought. But Corbin's comparison was one McDonnell drew on in the years that followed, McDonnell said, and because of Smith's development as a hitter, it's now being used by big league evaluators.
"The next Buster Posey," a rival executive said last week.
"He reminds you of Posey," a player said last weekend.
There has never been any concern about Smith's defense. McDonnell recalls watching Smith take grounders at third base, his movements so smooth, and McDonnell wondered to himself if Smith might be a better infield option than some of his regulars.
But Smith's most significant evolution has been as a hitter. Smith played in the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2015 and although he got hurt, he had seemingly improved by the time the Cardinals held their day for scouts that fall. Eric Snider is the hitting coach at Louisville, a program that has churned out 15 players who have made big league debuts since 2014. And in Smith's junior year, his offensive production erupted.
Byrnes dug into Smith's background and personality before the draft and asked former big leaguer and ESPN analyst Chris Burke about him. If you think of the Manning brothers, Burke said, then Smith's leadership comparable would be more Eli than Peyton -- says less than Peyton, but leads through his actions and plays with no less confidence.
Smith's draft stocked climbed, with the catcher ascending from a top 100-type of player -- someone who would probably be picked in the first four or five rounds -- to someone more coveted. "It was a confidence-builder," said Smith, who addresses questions like Posey does -- short and to the point. "It was exciting." The Dodgers had the 20th, 32nd and 36th pick in the 2016 draft, and there was some talk in the L.A. draft room about using that No. 36 pick on Smith.
But the Dodgers' staffers had grown to appreciate the substance in everything Smith did, and after taking Gavin Lux with the 20th pick of what was a loaded draft, they decided to use the 32nd pick on Smith, rather than wait. After the draft, they would learn that another team would've taken the catcher if the Dodgers had tried to wait until the 36th pick. (The Cardinals picked 33rd and 34th, and the Reds picked at 35.)
Over the past two years, Smith has continued to refine his swing, shortening it, making it more efficient, more capable of combating big league fastballs, and at the end of the 2018 season, he basically apprenticed with the Dodgers' staff -- witnessing and sharing in the game preparation, listening to the pitchers and catchers and coaches, absorbing the experience.
"When I got called up, [that time] made it much easier," Smith said. "I knew what to expect, what the daily routine was. I could just focus on playing, because I had already done the preparation, and already had a routine that I could work with; I had gotten the mistakes out of the way."
His disposition never seems to change, the Dodgers' coaches say. His emotions seem under control, always. Smith says that he has experienced those brief shards of enjoyment a fan might get, standing in the middle of a major league diamond in a big league game. A glance at the crowd. The recognition that the guy on the mound, Kershaw, will go down in history as one of the greatest ever. The first time that Braves All-Star Freddie Freeman stepped into the box. But he betrays none of that outwardly.
The Giants promoted Posey for a few at-bats at the end of the 2009 season, and then called him up in May 2010 -- and Posey played first base, initially, because they had Bengie Molina and Eli Whiteside and, well, you know what they say about young catchers. Posey earned the necessary trust, and the Giants won the World Series.
The next Buster Posey already has won the trust, it seems, and now we'll see where Will Smith takes it from here.