Evan Phillips Feels It’s ‘A Joke’ Dodgers Catcher Will Smith Wasn’t An All-Star Last Year
Will Smith has been one of the best catchers in baseball since 2021.
Since then, the Dodger backstop leads National League catchers with 58 home runs, 196 runs batted in and 144 walks, and leads all MLB catchers with 170 runs and an OPS of .843.
Despite the success and the consistent improvement, though, Smith has absolutely nothing to show for it.
He’s never made an All-Star team, he’s never won a Silver Slugger Award and he’s never received any sort of recognition for his stellar play. That doesn’t make one of his teammates very happy.
Dodgers RHP Evan Phillips was on the Foul Territory podcast recently, and got on the subject of the All-Star game. While Phillips didn’t worry about himself not making the team last year — which was a snub of its own — he was not very happy about his teammate and backstop Will Smith being left off.
“I haven’t really put any thought into why I wasn’t an All-Star [last year]. To me, I think that’s just an accolade that people receive. I don’t put a lot of thought into it. Like, I don’t know how many guys in our clubhouse would rather be an All-Star than win the World Series. We play on such a great team — I don’t even know how many All-Stars we had last year.
“For a guy like Will Smith to also not be an All-Star last year, that was kind of a joke in my opinion. Hopefully we get the guys that are deserving in that spot this coming summer.”
Phillips and Smith were some of the biggest snubs from last year’s game, but they both should have a serious chance to represent the Dodgers in Seattle this year.
In the first return of All-Star voting this year, Smith was second in the National League only behind Braves catcher Sean Murphy. As long as he stays in the top two, he’ll go to the final round of voting to be named an All-Star starter.
The first NL update is here. Vote 5x daily until 6/22 to send the guys to Seattle!
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 12, 2023
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Dodger fans have to do their part in getting Smith and the rest of the Dodgers lineup into the All-Star game. You can do so by clicking right here.
Hopefully this is the year that the player many have deemed the best catcher in baseball finally gets the respect he deserves. Will Smith deserves to be in the All-Star game.
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