These stats seem to show that Astros’ Cam Smith may be on the verge of breaking out

By many measures, Cam Smith should be in the middle of a breakhouse season. The slash line says otherwise, but the underlying data tells a different story. The good news is that the data suggest results are coming, even if the timing might be helped by one adjustment. 

That tension was sort of the through-line of Eno Sarris’s recent piece at The Athletic that identified Smith as one of four hitters whose batted-ball quality outpaces their slugging numbers. The common thread is that they’re not pulling the ball in the air. League average for pull air percentage is roughly 18 percent, while slugging on pulled fly balls runs about 250 points higher than on flies hit to center or the opposite field. It’s arguably the single highest-leverage outcome in baseball. And for Smith, the rest of the profile makes the gap loud.

Through the weekend, Smith’s average bat speed has climbed from 74.5 MPH to 77.5 MPH, which, according to Just Baseball, is the largest increase in baseball this year. He went from 46.9 percent of swings 75 MPH or harder to 76.4 percent this season. A harder swing isn’t always a precursor to success, but it does allow for louder contact. 

With it, his barrel rate has jumped from 6.9 percent last year to 14.6 percent this year, one of the largest increases in baseball. His hard-hit percentage is up as well, though not quite as drastically. 

Cam Smith has been struggling, but there's reason for hope

His Statcast page tells the story. His .348 xwOBA, compared to a .292 actual wOBA, along with a .256 xBA and a .463 xSLG, indicate better times are ahead. This is certainly not a player who needs to hit the ball harder. It’s been a few weeks now, but Kiley McDaniel noted back in April that he was the 21st most unlucky hitter in baseball.

The bat speed hasn’t appeared out of nowhere for him. He had a tough finish to his 2025 season, hitting .146/.251/.228 in his final 55 games. He reworked his setup, standing nearly seven inches farther back. That’s shifted his point of contact and pushed his attack angle, which has raised his fly ball rate quite a bit. 

The intent seems pretty clear. He wants more time to see the ball and have a longer bat path through the zone with more lift. Mechanically, the changes are doing what they were designed to do. Smith is getting the ball out front with a strong attack angle and plus-plus bat speed. A lot of the contact is going up the middle. Which is a problem.

While he’s barreling plenty, the issue is that he’s only pulled two of his 14 total barrels, which is 14.3 percent. That puts him toward the bottom of the league, grouped with other struggling hitters. What that translates into is often warning track power. Even on a barreled ball, a pulled fly is roughly 30 percent more likely to be a home run than one hit up the middle or the other way.

For Smith, the new stance and farther-back point of contact may actually be working a bit against pulling the ball into the air. He’s young and still calibrating, which can be tough for fans to accept, but the fact that the loud contact is leaking to center and not disappearing suggests this is nothing more than a timing issue. 

Smith’s .642 OPS is on par with what he did last season. The walk rate is up. The strikeout rate is about the same. The ISO is about the same. The big difference really is that his BABIP was .320 last year and is .275 this year. Get that up to .320, and his average is probably pretty close to the same as last season when he struggled as a rookie, but had his moments. Still, you’d assume the gap between the expected stats and the actual numbers will start to level out. 

For an Astros team sitting at the bottom of the division, the case for patience with Smith isn’t just hopeful guessing. It’s banking on the numbers, which is kind of all they can do at this point.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow