He's still going to be a star. He just needs to lift the ball so it goes over the wall instead of to the shortstop.
I think the chances are above 50 percent based on what I've seen before. The plate discipline is there, the contact is there, the power is there. He really only needs to change his swing path a little bit.
I'm not sure he will be a "star" but that depends on your definition of star. Is George Springer a star? He is averaging 4.6 bWAR per 162 games in his career but on pace for 3.4 this year and 4.2 is his best season since 2019. I think that's a good comp as long as he can improve his launch angle.
And at his age (and possible CBA changes), he may be a free agent before George was even called up initially....
MLB is a game of adjustments. Once pitchers figure out where they can get a hitter out, they will pound the ball in that vicinity. Cam Smith was starting to hit his stride, and got comfortable with the MLB level pitches. Next thing he got his OPS at .800, which is borderline star. But he’s dealing with MLB pitchers, who are overwhelmingly masters of their craft. Once they get the advanced metrics scouting reports on Cam Smith and the holes in his swing, they figured out how to exploit it. Now it’s time for Cam Smith to show he is apt enough to adjust to the pitching once again. Some guys make their adjustments generally fast. Others take much longer, making them not viable to sustain on a MLB roster. I always thought Brett Wallace was going to be a superstar, but he’s a perfect example of a fella who could not adjust fast enough to make him justifiable to keep long term on a roster. The adjustment pitchers make against certain batter, and vise versa is one of the many nuances that makes MLB intriguing.
Pitchers are definitely adjusting but an .800 OPS for a guy that seldom lifts the ball isn't sustainable at all. He needs to change his swing path in the off season. Hopefully he can do it without whiffing the ball more.
Yes, I agree that Cam needs to lift the ball. If he doesn’t, he will be eventually relegated to a 4th outfielder, if he doesn’t slide into CF. It’s commonly acknowledged that RF, LF, 1B, 3B need to mash HR’s consistently, at a clip above 20+ HR a year. You can get away with CF, SS, and catcher being contact hitters. But at this stage in his career, I think if Cam Smith can continue to pepper the ball, it will give him the timing and confidence for when he needs to give that baseball proper lift. Though it is concerning if Cam will be able to make consistent contact as he changes his swing to lift the ball.
The potential is that he can mash and still be a high contact hitter with plate discipline which would put him in the superstar category. His bat speed is elite and has proven to have gold glove potential in the outfield. All things point to him being amazing and the best player on the team. He just needs to lift the ball while still maintaining his current contact rate.
Thats not all. He also needs to drive the ball to left/left-center more. Fly balls to right will be outs much more often than hits. This is crucial. If he does not learn this he is a mediocre starter in RF for 5 more years and likely doesn't even make an All Star team.
No it's not. Pull and punish the pitches that need it, pitches that need to be driven to RF you drive to RF He's just a youngster and I'm very interested to see how he evolves over the offseason
I agree he is very young. In truth, if the team had any kind of OF depth at all, he would have spent significant time in the minors. He still has a very good chance to become an All Star level player and you nailed it when you said "drive" He does not drive the ball right now. But, in general, balls hit to the opposite field don't have the same "drive" as those pulled or hit up the middle. If he does not improve the % of pulled balls, the chances of him being a star are drastically reduced.
The best hitters, when they're locked in, drive the ball to CF/RF Selling out to pull is easy, and that's also how you end up rolling over on outside pitches and hitting lazy grounders to the left side eta:
This season has already been a huge success for him regardless of how he closes IMO. He has taken a gigantic leap in competition level in a very short time. The grind got to him. He's never had close to this level of consistent gameplay. On top of the mental grind all rookies have to navigate in regards to the video/ adjustment work that has to be done against the best pitchers in the world. Hope he still has a kick left in him,but even if he doesn't he's gonna be a great player very soon. I'll be shocked if he's not. Maybe not superstar level,but that's on the table too.
His plate discipline and his early penchant for hitting balls the opposite way when necessary gives me great hope that he is going to be one of the best players in baseball. He will have enough power to hit to all fields and, like you said, I don’t won’t him to sell out to try and pull everything. Just needs to adjust his launch angle a bit and then he will light the league on fire. The Tucker trade was fantastic.
In hindsight, it probably would have been better for Houston to send him down in March and roll with the other OF they had on hand (Trammell, Hummel, Melton, Dezenzo, Dubon, Corona, Whitcomb, Leon, etc.). Smith just hasn’t contributed enough to justify burning a year of his service time, and I don’t think any benefit he’s gotten development-wise outstrips what he would’ve gotten in the minors by enough to make it worth keeping him up. That’s all using hindsight so I don’t fault the front office, and Smith still has immense ceiling. But it’d probably be better for everybody if he was an MLB Top 20 overall prospect sitting in AAA instead of being a middling RF who contributed less than 1 fwar as a 22 year old rookie who basically skipped the minors.
I thought it was a good gamble at the time to see if he could win ROY and get an extra pick. I do think they should’ve sent him down this month and told him they just wanted to get him consistent bats and are gonna call him back up in September no matter what.
It wasn't like this was the ONLY year he could have won ROY. He clearly wasn't ready coming out if ST (he proved he could hit Mets pitching but not much else). Unfortunately we had a GM that was bound and determined to prove that he was a genius and had to have his star offseason acquisition in the lineup. I said coming out of ST that we probably kept the best players but not the best lineup. There were too many people needing ABs and not enough ABs to be split among them. A month or two in the minors to get swings and innings in a new position probably would have helped a lot more than anything he got this year in Houston (besides a ML clubhouse experience). So now instead of contributing down the stretch he is at best a platoon option. This is a wasted year for him.
