Much has been made this season about the struggles of Corbin Carroll. We have heard many explanations for why Carroll could be struggling, but Carroll gave us a peek under the hood last night in his post game interview courtesy of the Vice Mayor of PHNX Jesse Friedman:
Corbin Carroll got pretty specific here on what’s gone wrong at the plate:
“I made my swing too flat, and so it’s been a lot of work to try and create better attack angles and a better vertical bat angle.” pic.twitter.com/amwyI1K5xB
— Jesse Friedman (@JesseNFriedman) May 5, 2024
I do not claim to be an expert by any means, but I did pick some of this up in his batted ball profile earlier this season and if you guys would like to hear my humble take on what he is talking about feel free to read on.
What is Corbin referring to when he says he made his swing too flat? Here is a picture of him beginning his swing in 2023 on a ball up in the zone with a straight line drawn through his swing plane:
Here is an image of Carroll beginning his swing on another pitch up in the zone in 2024 with the same line drawn to match the angle of his bat:
Granted, the swing in 2024 is at a ball that would wind up being higher than the one in 2023, however you can see how much more upright Carroll is in his stance and how much flatter the angle of his bat as he begins his swing is.
As a pitcher, I was always taught to read a batter’s follow through to determine their bat plane. So I applied the same principles to Carroll in 2023 and 2024 and drew a line from his hand on the bat through his back shoulder at follow through. 2023 is on top and 2024 is on bottom:
Notice the lower finish in 2024 and how flat the angle is compared to 2023 on swings on pitches in pretty similar locations.
But if you are coming off a ROY then why make this drastic of mechanical adjustments you might ask? Notice in the above stills of Carroll’s follow through how his backswing arm is lower. My guess is the thought was if his hand finished lower it would put less strain on his shoulder in his follow through. Unfortunately that may have also contributed to the flattening out of his swing.
So what does it matter if his attack angle is flat? Disclaimer: I am not a graphic designer, but I hope I can still get the point across all the same with more rudimentary shapes. Below I have 2 ‘bats’ squaring up a baseball. The bat on top is flat while the bat on bottom has more of an attack angle:
Note the difference in height of the balls that are squared up (Y) from the flat bat on top vs the angled bat on bottom. Y represents how much more wiggle room you have on the height of the ball at impact to still hit that ball on the screws. In essence, Corbin has to be almost perfect with his swing plane thus swing height to square up a ball. This is what this concept looks like from a batted ball standpoint:
This was the biggest thing I noticed earlier this season when I was trying to look into Carroll’s struggles was the sharp increase in pop ups and hitting under the baseball from 2023. With a flatter swing, Carroll has to be almost perfect with his swing height to square up the ball and generate backspin. What we have seen this season is Carroll hitting twice as many pop ups as he did in 2023 due to his bat hitting underneath the ball and his margin for error being so small.
Because this seems to be a mechanical issue that Carroll confirmed last night he has recognized, I have confidence in his abilities to address the issue and make the appropriate adjustments to create a better attack angle. Especially when he demonstrated it last season so well. When he does, we should see a drop in the percentage of times he is popping the ball up and an increase in hard hit baseballs. When he hits a ball on the screws he still shows elite exit velocity with his max being 111.5 MPH in 2024. His average exit velocity is just being brought down by the fact that he isn’t able to square the ball up with consistency.
Thank you for reading and I hope this was able to help clarify what Carroll was talking about last night and give you all some hope that better results could be coming if he can make the fix.