Last December, the Houston Astros made a trade heard around baseball when they dealt Kyle Tucker to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for a bevy of players. At the time, most of the attention was paid toward Issac Paredes and Hayden Wesneski since they both had previous MLB experience.
But as the first half winds down, the real star of the show has been rookie Cam Smith, who is having tons of success despite entering the year with just 32 games of minor league experience under his belt.
But as Ken Rosenthal detailed in a recent story for The Athletic (subscription required), Smith’s success hasn’t been a surprise to anyone in the Astros’ organization.