Smith family vlogs give insight into MiLB life

ARLINGTON -- Josh Smith’s day job is as a Minor League player in the Rangers organization. He sits at No. 6 on Texas’ Top 30 prospect list, per MLB Pipeline, right outside the club’s five Top 100 prospects.

But his side job as a YouTube vlogger -- a video blogger -- and TikToker alongside his wife Claire Couvillon Smith gives fans an inside look at the life of a Minor Leaguer and his family. Claire describes herself as an “open book” and she figured this was the best way to parlay that openness into something.

“When [Josh] had just come home from his first full Spring Training in 2020, COVID hit and we had all this time together that we never thought we'd have,” Claire explained. “So I was like, our personalities, this lifestyle, we’re about to live together and we're getting married. This whole journey is something nobody really knows about. I know that I'm about to go on a ride so why not just film it? My mom was always telling me I was too much of an open book. That’s paying off now.”

Their joint YouTube channel, “Gettin’ Smithy With It,” has more than 13,000 followers, while Claire has close to 99,000 followers and more than 3 million likes on TikTok. Josh’s TikTok has over 64,000 followers with more than 1 million likes.

The idea to start a YouTube channel came from Claire watching accounts like “The Ace Family” or Cole and Savannah LaBrant and other family vloggers. Claire said it wasn’t hard to convince Josh to start the channel, despite his lack of experience or knowledge with the YouTube community.

Claire and Josh’s initial vlogs documented their lives following their engagement and wedding planning. Once baseball started back up amidst the pandemic, it only grew more.

“She saw that we had a unique life, more unique than others I guess,” Josh explained. “We're just traveling and doing baseball. And so she wanted to provide the kind of background information on that. And then just our wedding and our marriage and everything else. And so far, it's been pretty fun and cool, and we like doing it.”

Their most watched YouTube video on their channel is, not surprisingly, when they found out Smith was being acquired by the Rangers as part of the Joey Gallo deal with the Yankees at the 2021 Trade Deadline. Almost every Rangers fan has likely seen it, as it currently clocks in at more than 127,000 views.

“I think for us to provide that background was really cool and fun, honestly,” Josh said about the trade vlog. “I know people don't get to see it all, but that day for me was insane. Like it still feels so fake and like a dream, but literally I was in New York one day and then Texas the next day with a completely different life. It was nuts, but I’m really blessed and just happy to be here.”

“Josh had always told me how it can all change in the split of a second,” Claire added. “He said, 'If something happens, you’re going to find out on Twitter.' I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ And right when that trade happened, we were starting to feel comfortable, solid and stable with the Yankees and the baseball life. He said, 'It's gonna change just like that.' And it actually did and I literally found out through Twitter.”

The couple says they gained around 8,000 subscribers on YouTube after the trade and they finally started to understand the algorithm on the website.

One of the most fun parts of the vlogs for Josh is the things like that -- getting to show the game of baseball to people who may never interact with it on more than a surface level. There’s multiple instances throughout the couple’s videos where Claire has to urge Josh to explain baseball terminology to the audience.

Even more importantly, Josh and Claire want to show the life of a Minor League ballplayer compared to your typical big leaguer. Claire said she’s also learning alongside the viewers when it comes to the inner workings of the professional baseball world.

“People always think Minor League baseball is like you're in the MLB you're wherever the big league team is, but that's not really the case,” Josh said. “It's cool to get to educate people who are fans and even those who aren't fans. That's the whole point of it, is to try to grow the game of baseball. I think it's cool to get to show these sorority girl fashion lovers on TikTok and YouTube about our Minor League life and show Claire's followers what it's like and just spread the game and get people talking. I think that's pretty cool for us to do.”

"That's why it's so cool about it,” Claire added. “You're seeing literally our reactions to getting traded or anything. It's as big of a shock to me as it is for whoever's watching it, because we're living through our first experience with it too.”