The Cam Smith Conundrum
by Larry Achmidier -- Beat Writer
If you look longingly down the length of the pine on the River Carp bench, you'll see Cam Smith on the far, far end sitting by himself. It's another nondescript Wednesday and he's gone another nondescript 0-3 with 2 Ks and a groundout to short. The grounder was hit at 104 MPH because Smith swings the bat with the same velocity that a tornado swings a bird's nest, but none of it matters. He walks, dejected, back to the dugout, feeling his roster spot slipping with each hapless at-bat.
When the Carp signed Smith this offseason, they believed in him, illustrated by the three-year deal they inked with the young outfielder. He was another young, high-upside outfielder on a team flush with them, but his warts seemed the most agreeable --high groundball rate, low average, but a player who jumped straight from Double-A, has a rocket arm in right, has power and speed, and is still just 23. All of that was coupled with an 84th percentile bat speed and plenty of all around optimism.
Fast forward to 2026 and if you glance at Smith's analytics, you'll see a player who has improved, almost without exception, across the board. Even that excellent bat speed has jumped all the way to the 98th percentile. You'll see an xBA 40 points higher than his actual (.243 v. .203), and 79(!) points between his xSLG (.437) and actual (.358). Everywhere you look, his horrible production is screaming for positive regression. The Carp see that; everyone sees that.
But in the words of Billy Beane in Moneyball, "if he's a good hitter then why doesn't he hit good?"
Eventually, one has to wonder what the deal is. The murder suspect is the one area Smith has actually gone backwards in -- his LA Sweet Spot % (Launch Angle Sweet Spot). He sits in just the 15th percentile, whereas in 2025 he was in the 52nd. And though he has "improved" in squaring the ball up, going from the 3rd percentile to the 8th is like dropping a dozen eggs one week to only dropping 11 eggs the next. It's technically an improvement, but one might suggest there is a systemic issue with the way you're handling eggs.
What makes Smith so obnoxious is that he's doing a great job with the rest of the grocery order. You keep telling yourself, "if we can just get him to stop dropping eggs, he'll be a guy we can send to the store every single week!" But then he goes and trips on a caterpillar and once again you have a guy effing up one of the most critical items on your list every week. Eventually, this is untenable in the macro.
He's swinging harder, making more contact, and generally making worse contact. His exit velocities are up, his bat speed is up, but his bat path is worse. The metrics say he is due for an explosive positive regression, but they also say that if he doesn't fix that path issue, he'll likely just keep increasing the chasm between the expected numbers and the actual ones.
We'll see how long the Carp are willing to wait, and how many eggs they're willing to lose.