Tag: Washington Huskies Baseball

Eddie Smith called his hiring as Washington’s newest baseball coach a homecoming. Two weeks into his tenure, Smith is extending that homecoming to his players.

Smith and the Huskies earned a commitment from UCLA outfielder Malakhi Knight on Tuesday, bringing the rising senior home to Washington after three seasons with the Bruins.

Knight, a native of Marysville, Washington, slashed .260/.344/.341 over 91 games at UCLA while starting nearly every game in center field. Two of his three career home runs came in the 2024 season in just 75 at-bats.

Once ranked the top prospect in the West Coast League by Baseball America, Knight was the top-ranked player in the state of Washington in the class of 2021. Recruiting services had him ranked as the No. 4 outfielder and No. 19 player in the country in that class after he was named Gatorade’s Washington State Player of the Year.

Primarily a defensive specialist, Knight joins Smith, an Olympia native, in turning Washington baseball into a local affair. The Huskies will hope that leaning into their local talent resources will lead to more wins after going 19-31-1 last season before coach Jason Kelly elected to leave Montlake to become Texas A&M’s pitching coach after the season.

Knight was ranked as the No. 95 prospect in the 2021 MLB draft by MLB.com and was rumored to potentially be selected as high as the mid-second round, but he announced his intentions to withdraw from the selection process and honor his commitment to the Bruins between the first and second nights of that year’s draft.

Coach Eddie Smith will need a new starting shortstop for his first season at the helm with the Washington Huskies after Cam Clayton officially inked his contract with the Miami Marlins on Wednesday after the team selected him in round No. 14 of the MLB draft.

The final Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year will forgo his final year of eligibility after three strong years as the Huskies’ starting shortstop, where he put together a .294 career batting average with 63 extra-base hits (22 home runs), 99 runs batted in, and 130 runs scored in his career.

He also owns a career .964 fielding percentage after recording just 24 errors on 649 chances and has the ability to become a serviceable player at the next level. Before the 2024 season, MLB.com evaluated Clayton as a prospect, giving him a draft grade for each of his five tools on the scouting scale of 20-80 (50 is average).

Officially official ✍️@CamClayton12 is a member of #MarlinsBeisbol! pic.twitter.com/QQR2W9Ezgm

— Washington Baseball (@UW_Baseball) July 24, 2024

Clayton received a 50 for his hit, run, field, and arm strength tools, and a 45 for his power, making his overall grade a 45. However, following his impressive season in the field, his fielding tool could get an upgrade and appears to be one of the driving forces behind the Marlins selecting him where they did.

He will have a chance to help bring an influx of talent to a farm system that desperately needs it, as it was ranked No. 29 by Bleacher Report in its most recent update following the MLB draft.

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Colton McIntosh’s career with the Washington Huskies was very short, in fact, he only pitched 8 2/3 innings over his three years on Montlake. But despite that extremely limited sample size, he was still able to sign a minor league contract to begin his professional career with the Chicago White Sox.

He started his career at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, where he accrued a 4.10 ERA with 60 strikeouts and 43 walks over 59 1/3 innings during the 2021 season before transferring to Washington in 2022.

In 2022, he made 4 appearances and worked 7 1/3 innings without allowing a run with 14 strikeouts and 4 walks, including a career-high 6 punch outs against UC San Diego.

After not playing in 2023, McIntosh only pitched in two games for Jason Kelly’s Huskies in 2024 before his final year of eligibility was cut short due to an injury. He turned in a scoreless inning against Stanford on March 10, before allowing 3 earned runs over 2/3 of an inning against Oregon State on March 24.

Now, he will join a farm system with the White Sox that was ranked No. 20 by MLB Pipeline at the start of the season and could be seeing an influx of talent soon if the team decides to deal star pitcher Garrett Crochet and center fielder Luis Robert at the looming trade deadline.

A heat wave is coming to the South Side 🥵@cmc17_ x @whitesox pic.twitter.com/3lXOA01sEb

— Washington Baseball (@UW_Baseball) July 17, 2024

Whenever a team goes through a coaching change, turnover, especially in recruiting classes, is an inevitable part of the process. The Washington Huskies aren’t immune from that after coach Jason Kelly left for Texas A&M and was replaced by Eddie Smith.

However, fans seem to hurt a little more when the decommitment has legendary bloodlines, like Adrian Beltre Jr., who announced that he would reopen his recruitment on Wednesday.

“Due to the recent changes, I have decided to decommit from the University of Washington,” Beltre Jr. said on Instagram. “I would like to thank coach [Jake] Silverman and all of the University of Washington staff for the opportunity and their support throughout the recruiting process.”

His father, Adrian Beltre, is set to be inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame over the weekend after a 21-year career where he played for four teams, including the Seattle Mariners, and tallied 3,166 hits, 477 home runs, and 1,707 runs batted in.

While those are otherworldly expectations for his son to live up to, one of Smith’s top priorities will surely be convincing Beltre Jr. to commit to the Huskies again.

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.

In May, star Washington Huskies shortstop heard his name called as the Pac-12’s final Defensive Player of the Year. On Tuesday, the junior heard it again as the Miami Marlins selected him in round No. 14 of the 2024 MLB draft.

Clayton’s best tool is his defense, as he held a .980 fielding percentage with the Huskies last season, committing just four errors and turning 24 double plays. He also boasts a .964 career fielding percentage with just 24 errors to his name on 649 chances over three seasons.

The product of Lakeridge High School in Lake Oswego, Oregon, can hold his own at the plate too. Clayton has a .294 career batting average over 660 at-bats with 22 home runs, 99 runs batted in, and an .832 OPS.

His best season at the plate came during his sophomore year when he earned All-Pac-12 honors thanks to a .325 with 80 hits, 11 home runs, 42 RBI, and a .938 OPS.

If Clayton chooses to forgo his senior season and sign with the Marlins, he’ll be joining a farm system that was ranked No. 29 by MLB Pipeline at the start of the season, but he’ll be joined by a familiar face. In the tenth round, the Marlins selected third baseman Michael Snyder from the Oklahoma Sooners, who played in 144 games over four seasons in Seattle.

Coach Eddie Smith has to be hoping that Clayton will return to Montlake for his senior season, where the star shortstop could be a major building block for the first year of his tenure.

Dylan Crews had a stellar career with the LSU Tigers, which was aided during his freshman year by Washington’s new head baseball coach, Eddie Smith.

During the 2020-21 season, Smith was LSU’s hitting coach and worked very closely with Crews, helping him earn National Freshman of the Year honors from Perfect Game. He posted ridiculous numbers during his first season at the college level, blasting 18 home runs (a school record for freshmen) with 42 runs batted in, 39 walks, and 12 stolen bases.

He also tallied a .362 batting average and an 1.116 OPS, which also earned him a spot on Perfect Game’s Second Team All-America. Crews would go on to be the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB draft by the Washington Nationals and is ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 4 prospect in the sport, and he gives a lot of credit to Washington’s new coach for his development into one of college baseball’s best hitters.

“Working with coach Smith my freshman year in college was a great opportunity that I had and it’s something that I will remember for the rest of my career,” Crews said.

“The energy and attitude that he brought every single day to the field molded our team into one of the best physically and mentally prepared teams in the country. I think the best thing that I got out of my freshman year when working with him was how to ‘flip the switch’ when arriving to the field. Coach Smith put hours of effort into preparation for us players to have the best opportunity to win every game.”

According to a report from D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers, the Washington Huskies have found their new head baseball coach. A little over a week after Jason Kelly departed to become Texas A&M’s new pitching coach, athletic director Pat Chun hired Utah Valley’s Eddie Smith to take over.

“I could not be more excited to be the head baseball coach at the University of Washington,” Smith said in a statement. “I want to thank Pat Chun and (UW baseball sport administrator) Jordan Betts for their trust and belief in me to lead these young men. This program offers everything a player could want or need for their development and the opportunity to win championships. It will be an exciting time to build Husky baseball as we enter the Big Ten and our program will work with a relentless pursuit toward winning championships.

Smith has an impressive resume, as before he took the head coaching job with the Wolverines, he acted as the hitting coach with the LSU Tigers. In Baton Rouge, he helped guide the team to record numbers in the BBCOR era including 2023’s No. 2 overall pick Dylan Crews, who recorded 18 home runs, 42 runs batted in, a .362 batting average, and an 1.116 OPS as a true freshman.

He also made stops at Notre Dame and Virginia and was an assistant during the Cavaliers’ 2009 and 2011 trips to the College World Series. Smith then took his first head coaching job at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington and was named the American Baseball Coaches Association’s 2015 National Coach of the Year at the junior college level.

Over three seasons at Utah Valley, Smith led the Wolverines to an 82-90 overall record, but led the largest two-year turnaround in all of Division I baseball from 2021 to 2023.

When he took the job, the Wolverines were a 10-47 team and after going 19-37 during his first year at the helm, but improved to 34-24 in his second year and finished one game shy of the NCAA Tournament. While also acting as the team’s hitting coach, Smith helped lead his team to school records in home runs, stolen bases, and walks.

He will have quite the task on his hands with the Huskies, who finished with a 19-31 record last year, good for No. 10 in the Pac-12. Washington also displayed some mighty struggles offensively and ranked last in the conference in hits (442), batting average (.248), and OPS (.731).

🚨BREAKING: @UW_Baseball is hiring Eddie Smith as its new head coach, @d1baseball has learned. Smith, who spent time at #LSU, #UVA, #NotreDame #Tulane, spent the last three seasons as the HC for @UVUbsb. Smith takes over for Jason Kelly.https://t.co/u2A1zbnfnT pic.twitter.com/0osZPdWjhd

— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) July 9, 2024