As the Houston Astros go for the sweep in the third game of their 3 game series with the Chicago Cubs, I thought it might be an opportune time to look at one of the other trade pieces the Astros received from the Cubs for Kyle Tucker after the 2024 season: Cam Smith. Cam, the Cubs’ 2024 first round draft pick, impressed Dana Brown so much he promoted him to the major league roster on opening day 2025 after his first MLB spring training.
A lot of attention has been placed on Cam recently, little of it good. He’s been mired in a May where he’s batting .186, slugging .203, with a dismal .465 OPS. Questions have been raised on whether Cam needs time in the minors, whether he might be a bust, whether the Kyle Tucker trade was a mistake.
The answer to all those questions is no. Whether you realize it or not, Cam Smith has actually been very good this season.
1. Cam Smith has become an elite defensive right fielder.
We’ve been seeing this with our eyes every game. His range is exceptional he gets great jumps and makes sound reads. His transition from a third baseman to a right fielder has been remarkable.
It bears out in the metrics as well. He’s been worth 5 OAA and 6 DRS in 415.1 innings of right field work. That’s 1st and 3rd among all MLB right fielders. He rates highly for his arm value and strength as well.
2. Cam Smith has actually been hitting the ball pretty well.
You watch the games, he goes up, bats, and gets out. It looks bad. Bad enough that you see him with a .207 batting average in the corner of your screen. Bad enough that we’re nearing the end of May and he has a .615 OPS. That’s tail-end Martin Maldonado bad.
A lot of that has just been bad luck. By exit velocity and launch angle, the quality of his batted balls suggest that he should have better stats. A .275 BABIP (the league average is .287) contributes to this depression.
| BA | .207 |
| OBP | .298 |
| SLG | .317 |
| OPS | .615 |
| xBA | .243 |
| xOBP | .330 |
| xSLG | .442 |
| xOPS (i.e. xOBP + xSLG) | .772 |
| BABIP | .275 |
His batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS should all be appreciably higher. In fact, Cam Smith has been one the “unluckiest” hitters in the majors this year. He’s not just losing hits to bad luck, he’s losing extra bases to bad luck. Among qualified hitters, Cam Smith has the 4th largest negative difference between his xSLG and SLG at -.125. He has the 7th largest negative difference between his xwOBA and wOBA in the majors.
For as well as he’s striking the ball, he ought to have .772 OPS, well north of the 2026 major league average of .707. A .772 OPS would be comparable to what Jose Ramirez has this season, and would be around a 120 OPS+, instead of his 75 OPS+.
A .772 OPS would also be 32 points better than the man Cam Smith came to replace: Kyle Tucker.
3. Cam Smith’s value has been on the same level as Kyle Tucker’s.
Kyle Tucker’s OPS this season has been .740. Unlike Cam, Tucker’s not been the victim of bad luck. Tucker’s xOBP is .361 and his xSLG is .389, for an xOPS of .750.
This means Cam Smith has been hitting the ball as well, if not a little better, than Kyle Tucker has in 2026.
Even despite the poorer plate appearance outcomes, Cam Smith has still managed to be worth about as much fWAR (0.7) as Tucker has (0.8) this season. This is primarily thanks to Cam’s defense. Really, if their batted ball luck was on equal footing, 2026 Cam would be blowing 2026 Kyle Tucker out of the water.
4. Cam Smith is already becoming what we want him to become and we’re only 2 months into his second season.
You want Cam to play great defense? He’s playing right field at a Gold Glove level.
You want Cam to run fast and use his legs on the basepaths? He has 94th percentile sprint speed, and leads the Astros in stolen bases. He leads the team in BsR (Baserunning runs above average) with 1.3; nobody else on the team has more than 0.3 BsR.
You want Cam to hit the ball hard at the plate? He’s doing that too, they’re just not landing like they ordinarily would.
His xwOBA is high end. His xSLG is high end. He’s hitting the ball hard and barreling baseballs as well as almost anyone in the majors. His bat speed is elite: 98th percentile. He’s even drawing walks at a decent clip.
It’s skills like these that have resulted in him hitting the second longest home run in major league baseball this year (462 ft):
He’s fielding, he’s throwing, he’s running, he’s hitting (even if you don’t see it in the box score), and he’s producing as well as the man we traded to get him: Kyle Tucker.
Is there room for improvement? Of course, but Cam Smith doesn’t need more time in the minors. He just needs a few more balls to land.
Astros @ Cubs Game Information and Gamethread Details
Peter Lambert continues his surprising season as he makes his 7th start of the season. Through 6 starts, he is 2-4, with a 3.57 ERA, a 1.075 WHIP, 3.6 BB/9 and 8.9 K/9. After starting the season with a 23 swing and miss whiffapalooza outing, he’s settled down to a 28.3% Whiff rate, which is still good for 72nd percentile in the league.
The Cubs start Shota Imanaga, the 32 year old Japanese left hander. Imanaga has a 3.38 ERA with 1.040 WHIP, 2.5 BB/9 and 9.4 K/9 in 10 starts. Imanaga is comign off his worst start of the season, where hge allowed 8 earned runs, 9 hits, 2 HR, and 3 walks to just 2 strikeouts in 4.1 innings against Milwaukee on 5/18/26.
The Cubs are 29-23 and have now dropped 7 in row and 11 of their last 13 games.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
The game will be broadcast at 1:20 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads, even during this trying season. I’d tell you misery loves company, but even with the Astros losing, it’s still been pretty fun in the gamethreads.
Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .
For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.
If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link
If we run with the premise, our players are just unlucky. A new coach could be just what these unlucky guys need. Injuries??? We are just unlucky. One of the 48 Laws of Power is to stay away from unlucky people or find yourself unlucky with them
You make a good case and a more detailed one than I have. I would still send Cam down until he gets hot, for a simple reason: Confidence.
Some people think a demotion will ruin his confidence, I think it will boost it up as his luck will be forced into turning by hitting off of lesser pitching more frequently and forcing that luck to change more quickly via sheer probability. Cam will tear up AAA. Even with bad luck there will be more balls that land or leave the park. Let him rip around there for a short time and then bring him up again with a little more belief in himself.
The key point though is people saying Smith is washed or a failed prospect or a bad trade are indeed wrong. As bad as his results have been, this is not the player he is at this moment. Maybe Cam is just a .750 OPS defense-first guy for now- but like Mike Burrows isn’t a 9.00 ERA pitcher, Cam is not a .450 OPS hitter, whether either of them develop as you’d hope they do, or don’t.
Do we have to leave Chicago?