MLB Expert Touts Astros Top Prospect as Surprise AL Rookie of the Year Candidate

The Houston Astros have certainly had one of the more intriguing offseasons in all of MLB.

Fans have had to say goodbye to franchise mainstays like Alex Bregman, now with the Boston Red Sox, and Kyle Tucker, dealt to the Chicago Cubs.

At the time of the Tucker trade, the consensus was that the Astros did reasonably well in the return, which featured third baseman Isaac Paredes, pitcher Hayden Wesneski and prospect Cam Smith.

But Smith showed up to spring training and performed at a level nobody could have possibly foreseen. The No. 58 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline, Smith hit four homers in the spring while slashing .342/.419/.711.

While it's not official yet, all signs point to Smith making the Opening Day roster as a right fielder, sliding right into Tucker's vacated spot as a direct replacement for the man he was traded for with half a decade more of team control.

For the outlet's big 2025 season preview, ESPN's Bradford Doolittle was tasked with picking a Houston player most likely to earn a major award at the end of the season.

Despite the possible MVP candidacy of Yordan Alvarez and Framber Valdez's shot at the Cy Young, he settled on Smith as a player in the Rookie of the Year race.

"Let's go out on a limb and tout Cam Smith as a Rookie of the Year possibility," Doolittle wrote. "Smith has a clear path to regular playing time in right field, even if he doesn't break camp with the big league team, and he has mashed at every turn as a professional, including this spring. If Smith were to go on an awards-worthy tear, the howls over Bregman's departure might fade pretty quickly."

Smith looks poised to become a rare player to make it as a full-time Big Leaguer less than a year after being drafted, and everything he has shown to this point suggests that he is not going to slow down anytime soon.

After the Cubs took him No. 14 overall in the 2024 MLB draft, he put up a 1.174 OPS with Single-A Myrtle Beach and followed that up with a .921 OPS at High-A South Bend.

He's been too good for both of those levels already, and in spring training, he proved he could hang against Triple-A and MLB quality arms.

Now, he could transform this new-look Astros lineup and add a high-ceiling power option behind the top four of Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes, Yordan Alvarez and Christian Walker.

If he can carry his momentum from spring training over to the regular season at all, he may become the first player from Houston to win the AL's Rookie of the Year honor since Alvarez did it in 2019.