The Padres didn’t need Seth Smith, and traded him to the Mariners. The Mariners are getting themselves a nice little hitter, especially against right-handed pitching. Jeff will likely have more on Brandon Maurer, who was the Padres’ return for Smith, in the next couple of days, but until then I wanted to type up a little something about Eli Manning’s backup quarterback (it’s true).

Eno reminded us about players with a very defined skill set on Monday, and that is definitely how you would describe Smith. He’s not a very adept defender. He isn’t a complete sieve, but he’s certainly not around for his defense. He’s not the worst baserunner, but he wouldn’t be the first runner you picked to steal a base. Probably not the second either. And he isn’t much against left-handed pitching. Well, he was last year in an incredibly small sample, but given his track record that probably won’t persist.

What Smith does do well is hit right-handed pitching. Since his debut in 2007, there have been 169 batters to compile 2,000 or more plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. Smith is tied for 36th in wRC+. Pretty good, right? Especially for a part-time player. And for a team looking to add a corner bench or platoon bat this offseason, it would have been hard for the Mariners to do better. Let’s look at the players on this list, their current status, and their stats vs. righties since 2007 to drive home the point:

#	Name	Status	PA	wRC+
1	Joey Votto	Not available	2800	160
2	Prince Fielder	Maybe available	3433	157
3	David Ortiz	Not available	3112	156
4	Miguel Cabrera	Not available	4040	156
5	Shin-Soo Choo	Maybe available	2745	151
6	Lance Berkman	Retired	2568	148
7	Albert Pujols	Possibly kryptonite	3847	146
8	Adrian Gonzalez	Not available	3653	146
9	Alex Rodriguez	Possibly kryptonite	2561	144
10	Joe Mauer	Not available	2805	144
11	Matt Holliday	Not available	3880	143
12	Andre Ethier	Definitely available	3235	141
13	Josh Hamilton	Definitely available	2920	138
14	Giancarlo Stanton	Not available	2017	138
15	Justin Morneau	Maybe available	2899	137
16	Robinson Cano	Already on team	3524	137
17	Ryan Howard	Definitely kryptonite	3026	136
18	Andrew McCutchen	Not available	2980	136
19	Jose Bautista	Not available	3332	135
20	Ryan Braun	Not available	3519	134
21	Hanley Ramirez	Not available	3421	133
22	Carlos Gonzalez	Maybe available	2091	132
23	Pablo Sandoval	Not available	2570	132
24	Curtis Granderson	Not available	3437	131
25	Carlos Pena	Retired	2804	131
26	Adam Dunn	Retired	3545	130
27	Chase Utley	Definitely available	2981	129
28	Adam Lind	Not available	2780	128
29	Matt Joyce	Not available	2175	128
30	Kevin Youkilis	Retired	2480	126
31	Carlos Beltran	Possibly kryptonite	3036	126
32	Mark Teixeira	Possibly kryptonite	3036	125
33	Chris Davis	Not available	2022	125
34	Bobby Abreu	Retired?	2707	124
35	Evan Longoria	Not available	2974	124
36	Seth Smith		2348	123
37	Josh Willingham	Retired	2905	123
38	Neil Walker	Not available	2167	123

So, there are a few players who are likely available with the same skill set, but most of them — Fielder, Choo, Ethier, Hamilton, Howard, Gonzalez, Beltran, and Teixeira — are either very expensive, come with injury concerns, or both.

There are a couple of standouts here — Morneau and Utley most notably — which is nice company to be in. When you add in positional concerns though, Smith sort of stands alone. Utley could probably play the outfield, but I doubt you’d get him to waive his no-trade clause to do so. Perhaps they could have landed Joyce if they had acted sooner, and Joyce is probably Smith’s best comp. But at this moment, given the objective of trying to find an available player with a great track record of mashing against righties and who doesn’t cost a fortune, it would have been hard for the Mariners to do better than Seth Smith.