So far, he has been the biggest disappointment of 2024 on the D-backs.
Twenty-six games into the season last year, Corbin Carroll was hitting .311/.374/.556, good for a .929 OPS, which got him started on the road to unanimous selection as the National League Rookie of the Year. He was the team’s MVP as they made their way to the World Series, and his performance made Mike Hazen look like a genius for signing Carroll to a long-term contract before the 2023 campaign. There was always the potential for something of a sophomore slump: as I wrote in February, most players who win that award end up not quite as good the next year. Over the past decade, there has been an average drop-off in the second season of about 27% in overall production.
But, hey, that would still have made Carroll a very good player. The reality, however, has been much, much worse. After going 0-for-3 with a walk in the series finale against St. Louis, Carroll’s 2024 line dropped to .208/.321/.260, and OPS of just .581. With 1121 PA now in the books, he has just one home-run and two doubles, and the OPS ranks Corbin #151 among the 182 qualified hitters this season. From being the keystone of the Diamondbacks’ offense last year, he has so far barely been better than replacement level overall. Now, we are still in the “small sample size” part of the season. But let’s see if we can figure out whether there is an underlying issue, or if Carroll has just had bad luck.
Let’s begin with the above, which compares the Baseball Savant data from 2023 (left) to 2024 (right). The difference should be immediately obvious. Carroll is not hitting the ball anything like as hard as last year. His average exit velocity has slumped from 90.0 mph to 83.6 mph. That has dropped Carroll from the 63rd percentile in this metric in 2023, all the way down to the bottom three percent in 2024. His rankings for hard-hit and sweet spot were previously a little lower, but they now also find him down in the worst 4% of hitters. It’s a major factor in why his BABIP had dropped from .325 to .244, rather than just “bad luck”. Hard-hit balls are much more likely to become hits. No hard-hit balls? Not many hits.
One positive point is that Carroll’s plate discipline has, if anything, improved. It’s not as if he is trying to hack his way out of the slump by expanding the strike-zone. His chase rate (% of time swinging at pitches outside of the zone) is barely changed – down a little – and his whiff rate (swinging strikes) has moved Carroll up from 71% to 84%. His strikeout rate (89%) and walk rate (84%) are in the same area. His K:BB ratio of 17:15 thus far, is a great deal better than the 125:57 Corbin posted in 2023. He is being a bit more aggressive in terms of swinging at the first pitch, but Carroll’s overall pitches per plate appearance is basically unaltered from last season.
If we break the pitches down, the problem seems in particular to be with fastballs. He is hitting only .161 against four-seam fastballs, barely half of the .302 figure Corbin had last year. His results against sinkers are also down, though not as much. Is this a mechanical issue? Michael McDermott noticed something interesting earlier in the week:
Noticeable change in Carroll’s stance today. Left photo (yesterday) the bat head was pointing down. Today (right), bat more flat as he waits for the pitcher to start his motion. pic.twitter.com/dMAxshxnQn
— Michael McDermott (@MichaelMcDMLB) April 21, 2024
What is interesting has been the lack of noise from the managers and coaches about the situation. We are still talking not much more over a hundred PA, so it is comparable with a 20-game spell last July and August, during which Carroll hit .167 with a .491 OPS. But given the obvious nature of the struggles, I’d have expected more discussion. It is notable that, after batting first or second in the line-up all season, Carroll was dropped to seventh for the series finale in St. Louis. Said manager Torey Lovullo, “He just needs to maybe take a deep breath and find his way. And he will. Once he gets there, we’ll migrate him back up to where he belongs at the top of the lineup.”
The only other acknowledgement seems to have been an article in the Arizona Republic a week ago, headlined “Corbin Carroll still looking for offensive solutions”. This didn’t shed a great deal of light on the cause, but noted that Carroll “ditched a toe tap against right-handed pitchers to try to catch balls further out in front.” It’s hard to tell if there’s been any impact in the results of late, but one element which has been notable since spring training is the general lack of pulled balls for Carroll, particularly ones in the air. His ground-ball percentage is at a career high, but his pull percentage is a career low. You can see this from his 2024 hits chart (below), which hardly has anything past the infield to right field.
It’s safe to say that without Carroll’s contribution in 2023, the D-backs would not have made it to the post-season, never mind the World Series. While he remains a significant threat on the basepaths, trying to return to the playoffs in 2024 is going to be a much harder task without Carroll’s contributions at the plate. Getting him back on track would go a long way to getting the D-backs over Mount .500, rather than looking up at it, as they have been doing for much of the season. Let’s hope Corbin can return to the MVP-caliber player he was in 2023, because I don’t think Jack or I can stand hearing many more stories about how great Elly De La Cruz is doing. 🙂
Not how I expected this to be going at this point in 2024https://t.co/C3Vc1wacRZ pic.twitter.com/R4VyoBboiv
— Jack Sommers (@shoewizard59) April 25, 2024