The Washington Huskies had more than their fair share of struggles at the plate last season. Coach Jason Kelly’s team finished last in many major offensive categories before he departed for Texas A&M and now under coach Eddie Smith, the Huskies will have a brand new approach at the plate.
Smith has made a name for himself as a hitting coach, most notably during his time at LSU where he helped develop the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB draft, Dylan Crews. He also led his team to multiple school records offensively during his tenure at Utah Valley and will look to have similar success with the Huskies.
That success will start with one statistic, OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage).
“There’s not a whole lot of things that I think about more than hitting and trying to get an individual right or getting a group going in the right direction,” Smith said during his introductory press conference on Tuesday. “That comes down to their offensive approach, plan, swing mechanics, and everything else that dives into hitting.”
“Some things that we’re going to work to chase are scoring the most runs that we can, I know that’s Moneyball 101, and OPS is the stat that correlates with that the most. Our hitters will be groomed to understand that OPS is the target and we’re going to work every day to get our pitch and hit it hard.”
OPS is a great focus for Smith’s team, as the Huskies only had three members of their lineup with an OPS over .800 last season, second baseman Aiva Arquette, third baseman AJ Guerrero, and shortstop Cam Clayton. In fact, Washington’s team OPS was a meager .732, which ranked at No. 280 of the 305 qualified teams on D1Baseball.com.
Smith has quite the task on his hands with rebuilding Washington’s lineup, but has gotten results at every stop along his journey, and could reshape the Huskies right away.