Cam Smith’s mother jokes that her son is “too serious.” His hitting coach says he’s “built different.” His agent, who has worked with hundreds of professional athletes, says he’s unlike anyone he’s ever known.
None of that is an accident.
Smith, 23, grew up in Lake Worth, Florida, and arrived at Florida State already wired like a veteran. He routinely shows up at the ballpark more than six hours before night games. He says he has never had a sip of alcohol and avoids caffeine entirely. He uses meditation—first the Calm app, now Bob Marley and the Wailers—to prepare himself mentally before and during games.
“When you get the response and the feedback of someone like Cam, you quickly learn that he’s built different, he’s wired different,” his personal hitting coach Aaron Capista said. “It’s so cliche to say you want to be great, but when you hear it and you get to know someone like Cam, you quickly learn that he means it, and he does the work, he does the stuff in the background that no one sees.”
The Cubs drafted him 14th overall in 2024. He played 32 minor league games before Chicago packaged him with Isaac Paredes and Hayden Wesneski to acquire Kyle Tucker from Houston. He made the Astros’ Opening Day roster out of spring training—one of the fastest draft-to-major-league ascents in recent memory. Espada had arranged it in advance—Smith’s mother, Stephanie Hocza, his stepfather, grandmother, and girlfriend were waiting outside the clubhouse. Espada gathered the team, gave a speech about family, and made a call to bring them in. Smith started crying before Hocza said a word.
“You made the roster,” she told him.
“At one point it was just me and her in the house,” Smith said afterward. “She struggled to take me to baseball games and practice. I’m just happy to do it for her.”
Before spring training, Smith visited the Maven Baseball Lab to refine his swing path, identifying a mechanical flaw—his bat was getting too flat early—and addressing it. Even so, his average dipped to .196 earlier this month. With Jose Altuve sidelined by an oblique strain, Smith found himself with more playing time than he might otherwise have had. He used it.
The past two weeks have offered a glimpse of what Smith can do on both sides of the ball. He went 11-for-33 over that span, with two doubles, two home runs, and a 1.010 OPS. He also put together the defensive play of the road trip.
With the Astros already up 3-0 in the first inning Thursday, May 28, in Arlington—Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes had homered before Texas batted—Brandon Nimmo stepped in against Spencer Arrighetti and sent a ball at 94.1 mph toward the 8-foot right field wall. Smith tracked it, timed his jump, and saved the day.
Arrighetti stood on the mound with his hands on his head, convinced he’d given one up.
“I’m gonna be honest, like, I thought that was a flyout,” Arrighetti said. “It didn’t sound like he really got it, and it just kept going, kept going, kept going, and then Cam jumped, and I was like, ‘Oh, great, like I just gave up a homer.’ And then he came back down and didn’t really do much, but then he flipped the ball.”
“Honestly, I didn’t even know how to react,” Smith said, per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. “I hadn’t done that before. It was pretty cool and I’m glad I could do it for [Arrighetti].”
It was also a small piece of symmetry. Nimmo had robbed Yordan Alvarez of a home run at Daikin Park on May 17. Smith returned the favor for Houston 11 days later in Arlington.
On Friday night against Milwaukee, Smith homered in his first at-bat and doubled hard two innings later, finishing with two RBI in a 5-4 loss in 10 innings. He struck out to end the game in the 10th, but manager Joe Espada wasn’t troubled by it.
“Even that swing there with Megill, you just could see how the contact point is right on cue,” Espada said. “He is catching stuff right in front. He’s on time. He thought he was the right guy for that spot. I had a really good feeling, the way he’s swinging and how confident he is. He wants those moments. He wants those at-bats.”
Smith said he couldn’t point to any single adjustment.
“Just more opportunities,” he said. “We’ve always been an offense-driven team, and for me to keep getting opportunities to do big things for this ballclub offensively is huge.”
For someone who has spent years preparing for every opportunity, the biggest challenge now may simply be getting enough of them.
Heading to Daikin Park soon? Check the Astros promotions schedule before your next game.
Photo credit: Lance Cpl. Perri Wood, U.S. Marine Corps (public domain)