Introduction
- Rating: 4.60
- 2025 Stats: .258/.362/.434, 120 OPS+, 0.4 bWAR
- Date of Birth: 2/6/1996
- 2025 Earnings: $1.5 million
- 2026 Status: Arb eligible, decent shot at starting first base on Opening Day.
2025 Review
Pavin Smith came into the season on the wings of a fairly good season. His playing time was limited, due to some very careful platooning from Hazen and Lovullo. The results were hard to argue with. He
finished the season with 1.0 offensive bWAR (the less we speak about the defensive side the better) and a very good 145 OPS+. There was great hope that he had finally found his place in the majors, after wandering in the wilderness of ineffectiveness for a few years.
His usage to start the season was nearly identical to the previous season, almost exclusively facing right handed pitchers and mostly as a designated and pinch hitter. Like 2024, it was an effective strategy. Through his first 100 AB, his batting average he was slashing .313/.447/.535 and generally being a productive part time member of the team. However, that would be the high water mark of the season for him. He would begin a steady decline from those heights from there, starting with a seven game/21 PA hitless streak to start the month of May, en route to 15 hitless games out of 25 for the month. That dropped his batting average 22 points, a trend which only continued from there.
There was cause for concern even in those numbers. Through May 31st, he was putting up a BABiP of .433, which of course was wildly unsustainable, and in June, that caught up to him and the wheels fell off. On the plus side, he doubled his home run total for the season from four to eight, but that was just about the only thing that went right for him in the month. He swung away to a paltry .194 batting average, and beyond the four home runs, had only one additional extra base hit. It was a double against the White Sox on Jun 25th.
It’s nothing more than idle wondering, but his drop off did coincide with a significant increase in playing time at first base. As mentioned, prior to that he was almost exclusively a designated hitter, and a part of me wonders if having to reacclimate to playing a position mid season threw him off leading to a decline in his other aspects in his game. It had a clear impact on his overall value to the team however. He played 36 games total for the season in position. He was worth -1.1 bWAR from his defense alone in that few games.
There isn’t much left to his season, unfortunately, after that. He played seven games in the month of July before being sidelined for six weeks with a right oblique strain. He would come back from that in the middle of August, and what couldn’t have been a better time for the Diamondbacks. Naylor had been traded already at that point, and Tyler Locklear was struggling, making it a prime situation to platoon Smith at first base. Or at least, that sounded like a good plan. He played eight more games, and struggled more in those, before injury struck again. This time it was in the form of a quad injury, and given the lateness of the season, it ended his campaign.
It was clearly a season of two halves for Smith. Despite his second half struggles, he still maintained a 120 OPS+ for the season, and was worth 0.9 bWAR on offense. All the more impressive given his struggles post May. But those struggles are undeniable and may taint expectations for him going into next year
2026 Outlook
It seems as though we will be seeing plenty of Smith in the 2026 season. With no other obvious options at first base, given Locklear’s injury probably putting him on the bench to start the season, it seems likely that we will go into the season with a platoon of Smith and another member. Tim Tawa seems like a reasonable expectation there. Locklear’s return may not even see Smith lose playing time, as they could continue the platoon from there. Regardless the first round draft pick will continue to get many more chances with the Diamondbacks for at least another season.
