Cam Smith

Smith, the No. 14 overall pick last year, may have had the best statistical debut of any hitter in the class. He slashed .313/.396/.609 with seven home runs and a 24:15 K:BB in 32 games across Single-A, High-A and Double-A and has been improving rapidly as a hitter over the past couple years. He was among the top gainers in the country in both contact rate (70.6 percent to 82.1 percent) and 90th percentile exit velocity (106.5 mph to 111.3 mph) from 2023 to 2024 en route to rising up boards as a draft-eligible sophomore at Florida State. A 6-foot-3, 225-pound brick house with big-league strength, Smith also excelled over a large sample with a wood bat in the Cape Cod League (.981 OPS, 12.8 K%), which is an important datapoint. There were questions about his swing plane coming out of school and how much over-the-fence power he'd get to, so it's worth noting that six of his seven homers came at Single-A, where he had a 28.6 percent groundball rate, before Smith's groundball rate jumped to around 50 percent at High-A and Double-A. He'll likely return to Double-A with a potential bump to Triple-A around midseason. Smith has the upside of a .300 hitter with 25-30 homer pop. The Cubs sent him to the Astros in the Kyle Tucker trade in December, though that shouldn't significantly affect Smith's immediate outlook. It's worth noting however, that Houston fortified its corner infield this offseason by acquiring Christian Walker and Isaac Paredes, with the latter also being included in the Tucker trade. Read Past Outlooks