Comments overflowed from the faithful on these threads around the ASB that Justin Smoak was the next Michael Saunders.

And they were dead wrong.  Again.

The manager, of course, had no intention of playing him on a regular basis, Smoak only got to play as the latest new sensation, Steve Pearce, got injured.  So, let's take John Gibbons view on this with a rather large grain of salt.  Safe to say, the manager is not much of a judge of talent, he doesn't see things that nobody else sees.

This very well could be Smoak's career year, and he may never again hit these heights, though unlikely he will slide back to what he used to be.