![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/KIP_8656.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Aidan Smith. Photo by Matt Kipp \/ Brooklyn Cyclones<\/p>\n
Aidan Smith was in Greensboro, North Carolina, getting ready to play the final game of a six-game series when his manager pulled him aside. Smith was getting pulled from the lineup. His manager didn\u2019t know why yet, but the call came down from above.\n<\/p>\n
It was Aug. 2, the day before the MLB Trade Deadline. Smith knew something was probably about to go down.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always in the back of your mind,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey don\u2019t really pull you for no reason, so. Especially that close to it, you kind of have an idea of what\u2019s going on. You just don\u2019t know the deal or where you\u2019re going and stuff like that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Then, it\u2019s a fire drill. The now-former Hot Rods outfielder left Greensboro and headed back to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to pack up his stuff. From there, he got on a plane and met the Cyclones in Wilmington, Delaware, where the Cyclones were set to start a road series vs. the Blue Rocks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou basically pack up your whole life, and you know you\u2019re moving on to a new place,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of excitement there too, because you\u2019re wanted.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t his first time experiencing this, either.\n<\/p>\n
Smith was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in 2023. A fourth-round pick, he signed for over double his slot value to forgo his commitment to Mississippi State. One year later, Seattle sent him to the Tampa Bay Rays as part of the Randy Arozarena trade. He spent the second half of 2024, all of 2025 and the first half of 2026 with Tampa Bay before he was traded yet again, this time as part of the Freddy Peralta trade.\n<\/p>\n
Similar to Sammy Stafura, another new Cyclone whom the Mets acquired at the trade deadline, being traded twice helped him know what to expect. Still, that doesn\u2019t mean it was no big deal.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy best analogy to it is like switching schools,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYour parents move, you come with them, you\u2019re there, and you don\u2019t really have a say. It\u2019s like, just go and make friends and meet new people. For me, it was my second time, so a little easier this time, kind of knew what I was getting into. Obviously it\u2019s sad to say bye to all your friends in your old org, but [it] doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t be friends just cause you\u2019re not on the same team.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Smith had at least one familiar face in Brooklyn to greet him. At the end of last season, the Rays sent Smith to play in the Arizona Fall League. There, he was teammates with Cole Mathis, who the Mets acquired earlier this season for David Peterson.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat dude, love him,\u201d Smith said.\n<\/p>\n
The two of them talk a lot about cards. Mathis is a big baseball card collector himself, and Smith has recently started to get into it. He has his own Topps Pro Debut Baseball 1-of-1 card and a Topps Chrome Baseball Shohei Ohtani card numbered to 10 that he pulled, which he said is currently the best card in his collection. Smith even dabbles in Pokemon card collecting and has a Base Set 2 Charizard, which goes for hundreds of dollars minimum on the resale market and potentially north of $10,000 if graded well.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And Smith had two of his friends come with him. The Rays sent infielder \u00c9milien Pitre and pitcher Gary Gill Hill to the Mets along with Smith, and the entire trio spent all of 2025 in High-A together with the Hot Rods. He FaceTimed both of them, just to quickly say what\u2019s up.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very brief conversations,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were just kind of like congratulating each other, and words of encouragement for everyone. Just go do your things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
All three players have had hot starts with the Mets. Pitre, a contact-oriented player, hit .375 with Double-A Binghamton before being promoted to Triple-A Syracuse. Gill Hill has been very good through his first four starts in Binghamton. Smith has mashed.\n<\/p>\n
In his first game with the Cyclones, Smith went 2-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. He picked up his first hit as a Met in his first at-bat.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always have a little bit of nerves because new people, new org, you\u2019re trying to start off on the right foot,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt definitely felt good. Just kind of take a breath and like, ok, now we\u2019re good. Now we just continue to play.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
From there, things got crazy. Smith hit his first Mets home run in his very next game. Then hit another the next day. And then a third in his very next game. And then a fourth two games later. In his first six Cyclones games, Smith went 10-for-22 with four homers and a double. Altogether, it added up to a 1.545 OPS.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not trying to hit home runs, at least, I\u2019m not,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think that\u2019s just a byproduct of having a good plan at the plate and getting pitches you wanna hit, and putting good swings on it. I mean, it doesn\u2019t get better than that, but it\u2019s not something you\u2019re trying to do. But when you do do something like that, it\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
At his best, Smith has five-tool potential. He\u2019s a no-doubt center fielder, with a 60-grade or better on run, field and arm on both MLB Pipeline<\/a> and Baseball America<\/a>. The latter even threw a 65-grade on his glove. He has a lot of power in his bat, as he\u2019s demonstrated early in his Cyclones career. The big question with him will be if he can make enough contact.\n<\/p>\n Even with his one-dot OPS so far as a Cyclone, he\u2019s striking out over 30% of the time. He always struck out a bit more than average, but it jumped over 30% for the first time with the Rays. With it, his OPS fell, down from .874 in 2024 to .719 in 2025 and .672 before the trade in 2026.\n<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s kind of on a mission to get back to some things he used to do well,\u201d Cyclones Hitting Coach Devin DeYoung said. \u201cFelt like he got away from it, and he\u2019s kind of tunnel-vision on what he\u2019s trying to accomplish. He says he feels very comfortable here, he likes it here already. I\u2019ve had great conversations with him. He\u2019s a high-level baseball mind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aidan Smith. Photo by Matt Kipp \/ Brooklyn Cyclones Aidan Smith was in Greensboro, North Carolina, getting ready…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-331695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}