This key flaw in Cam Smith’s game should have Astros working overtime to fix

Cam Smith has been everything the Astros have needed so far this year. He’s learned a new position on the fly, held down the offense when the team’s stars struggled early in the year and has already become a leader in the clubhouse. 

But, for him to reach the levels the Astros need on their quest toward a World Series championship, he’s going to need to figure out how to perform much better against big league breaking balls. 

Cam Smith's issues with dealing with breaking stuff is a hurdle he must overcome

Although Smith is slashing .253/.322/.375 on the season, he’s hit just .218 against breaking pitches this year compared to a .276 average against fastballs and a .270 average against offspeed pitches. 

Smith’s even been a bit lucky against breaking pitches as well, as he’s outperformed his expected batting average of .211 on the pitch. It seems like pitchers have picked up on that as well since Smith’s hit just .217 in his last 33 games as he has seen more and more sliders and curveballs as the season has gone on. 

While no MLB hitter is perfect against every pitch, the best ones are able to lay off everything else and force pitchers to try to beat them with the pitch they excel at squaring up which, in Smith’s case, is the fastball. 

But Smith hasn’t been able to do that, as he currently ranks in the 24th percentile in whiff rate and the 10th percentile in strikeout rate. Not only is he not squaring up pitches in the zone, but he’s also swinging and missing at pitches out of the zone as well. That combination is not a recipe for success

There’s less pressure on Smith to produce given the addition of Carlos Correa to the top of the Astros’ lineup, but he’s still a pivotal part of Houston’s lineup. When they were at their best earlier this year, he was pestering pitchers at the bottom of the lineup and sending balls into the gap. 

While Joe Espada moved him back to the bottom of the lineup a couple weeks ago, his approach still has the holes that popped up during the month-long stint where he was at the top of the lineup. These struggles are also to be expected given Smith only had 32 minor league games under his belt prior to breaking camp with the Astros this year. 

The Astros appear to be giving Smith the runway to figure things out in the big leagues, but the questions about his ability to be an everyday player will only grow louder until he figures out how to handle breaking pitches.

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