Swings and Takes: Shouldering the burden of expectations

We have stayed positive for the most part so far in Swings and Takes, as early in the season it is hard to put much stock in the struggles of star players, but this week we are breaking that trend. The hope here is that by putting our fingers to our keyboards we reverse the trends of any struggling players we examine. Our first negative review comes for a hitter who looked like one of the rising stars in the game in his rookie year, only to struggle so far in 2024. Note that we are engaging in a bit of injury speculation this week, which is a very dangerous game, but one we will only go to when there is a lot of supporting evidence, which we believe there is in this case.

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Snake-bitten sophomore year

Corbin Carroll (OF, ARI) was our HQ100 #1 prospect in all of baseball going into the 2023 season as a true power/speed/hit combination player who looked set to be a perennial All-Star for years to come. He showed his hit/power combo in his initial 32 game sample, slashing .260/.330/.500. He followed that up by winning the Rookie of the Year in 2023, with a monster 25 HR/54 SB season that ended in a surprise World Series run for the Diamondbacks. While this looked a clean transition from prospect-dom to stardom in a way that rarely happens so quickly, Carroll has struggled massively to start 2024, with a .209/.296/.317 line in 91 games so far. Carroll’s overall contact quality has cratered so far in 2024, moving from an xISO in the 52^nd percentile in 2023 to 7^th percentile in 2024, and a hard-hit percentage down from 51^st percentile in 2023 to 27^th in 2024. While the most visible drop has occurred year-over-year, Carroll showed some warning signs even during his triumphant ROY season. While there are a lot of surface problems that can and will be pointed to, it all seems to lead back to the health of his right shoulder.

Carroll, after being drafted 16^th overall in 2019, hit the ground running, dominating rookie and A-ball to the tune of a .299/.409/.487 across 42 games. He got off to a blistering start in 2021, hitting over .400 with 2 HR in his first seven games of 2021, before being ruled out for the remainder of the season with a torn right labrum. Carroll seemed to not be impacted much by this injury when he came back in 2022, dominating Double-A and Triple-A before the successful MLB debut we documented above, but the issue resurfaced in the middle of 2023. On June 29, 2023, he was slashing .290/.366/.559, on his way to another All-Star game and in the thick of the MVP discussion. That day, however, he had to leave the Diamondbacks' game against the Rays with another injury to his right shoulder. Despite the team saying at the time that his shoulder was “strong and stable,” he had another scare on July 6, leaving the game against the Mets after reaching for his right shoulder again. He had an MRI the next day but ultimately did not miss any time, playing the next day and playing almost every day for the rest of the season and through the playoffs. Whether or not it was directly because of the injury, Carroll did not have the same punch in his bat after June 29:

While those production numbers after June 29 are certainly down, they are still not terrible and definitely do not forecast Carroll’s 2024 performance. One trend within that slide, however, starts to paint the picture of what has happened so far in 2024 when shown in two ways:

 

 

We can see how Carroll’s ability to impact four-seam fastballs started to diminish slowly over the 2023 season. He peaked in this regard in May with a .505 xwOBA against four-seamers and then slowly declined until he really fell off a cliff in September, posting a .282 xwOBA against four-seamers that month. 

This is where we start to transition into looking at 2024, as Carroll is getting more four-seam fastballs than ever (36.8%, compared to 32.8% in 2023) and doing little with them. He is hitting .190 against four-seam fastballs so far in 2024 with a .317 slugging percentage, and while his expected numbers are better at a .239 xBA and .370 xSLG against four-seams in 2024, they are a far cry from his .291 xBA and .538 xSLG against them in 2023. Here is where pitchers have located four-seamers against Carroll in 2023 and 2024:

Carroll Four-Seam Fastball Location 2023 

 

We can see how pitchers have moved their average location a little more up and in to Carroll in 2024. That is likely because he has particularly struggled with four-seam fastballs up in 2024. Carroll generally crushed fastballs up in 2023, although up and in was a weakness. Another factor to look at here is how Carroll is handling high velocity up, so we broke four-seam fastballs down into 94 mph or down, average or below, and 95 mph and up, above-average. Carroll did not have any problems with velo in 2023 as we can see from these charts:

Carroll Four-Seam Fastball Heatmap <= 94 MPH 2023

Carroll Four-Seam Fastball Heatmap >= 94 MPH 2023

And then we can contrast them to these same charts in 2024:

Carroll Four-Seam Fastball Heatmap <= 94 MPH 2024

Carroll Four-Seam Fastball Heatmap >= 94 MPH 2024

Carroll crushed fastballs up that he could get extended on in 2023, as we can see from the 2023 heatmaps, including even those above 94 mph. That has not been the case at all so far in 2024, as pitchers have been able to bully him in those spots, especially at higher velocities. Speculatively, if you think about the process of a swing, Carroll’s right shoulder mobility is key to being able to get fully extended up in the zone, especially to react to high velocity fastballs up and away from him. Any impact to that mobility or range of motion is likely to hinder his ability to hit those pitches, and that is possibly a key piece of what is going on here.

Along with struggling with four-seam fastballs in 2024 Carroll is also massively struggling to hit sliders, as he is only hitting .192 with a .269 SLG against them in 2024 after hitting .323 with a .585 SLG against those pitches in 2023. Sliders are the pitches we could see the largest disparity for Carroll between his expected numbers and his actual production in 2023, however, as his .246 xBA and .406 xSLG against sliders in 2023 told a different story. In addition to regressing toward his expected numbers on sliders, however, it is also fair to speculate on the impact of no longer being able to cover the fastball up on his ability to hit sliders. Carroll has been getting attacked with more four-seam fastballs in 2024, as we discussed previously, and has likely adjusted to try to reach those pitches. When you adjust to cover the high fastball, it can leave you vulnerable to sliders. We can see that while Carroll’s production against four-seam fastballs over the course of 2024 has improved by month, his production against sliders has been inversely related:

 

 

This is the yin and yang of hitting and why it is so hard: the minute you make an adjustment to cover one hole, you often create a new one. Carroll has additionally seemed to try to adjust to possible physical limitations in 2024 by being less aggressive. He has dropped his in-Zone Swing% by almost 4% and cut his Chase% by approximately 2%, leading to an overall increase in bb% (10.2% compared to 8.8%) while simultaneously cutting his K% (down 1.7%). If we are looking for additional reasons for optimism, Carroll provided one on July 7 with this swing against Dylan Cease: 

 

Carroll HR against Cease

This is exactly the pitch we want to see Carroll go back to hitting, a 97 mph fastball up in the zone that he crushed about a week ago. In terms of physical capability, it is nice to see him be able to drive that pitch the way he did early in 2023, as it is likely the hardest pitch for him to reach with a bad shoulder if it is still bothering him. Ultimately, we cannot speculate too much about a player’s health when they claim to be healthy and Carroll himself believes that the issue is more mechanical with his bat path becoming too flat through the zone, as this linked article explains. But until we see him drive fastballs with more consistency those health questions will remain pertinent given his long injury history with that shoulder. 

 

Quick Hits:

• Lane Thomas (OF, WAS) is a natural candidate to be moved at the trade deadline, especially after the Nationals signaled their direction by trading setup man Hunter Harvey (RHP, KC) on Saturday to the Royals. Thomas, who had a career-best year in 2023 with a 28 HR/20 SB season over 157 games, has held his production roughly steady so far in 2024, with a little less power indicated by a nearly 50-point drop in SLG. But under the hood his process changed a decent amount in 2024, largely for the better. Thomas has cut his Chase% by approximately 6%, his Whiff% by about 3%, and his ground ball rate by about 6%, while increasing his hard-hit rate by approximately 2%. Thomas plays every day for the Nationals but his next team may use him more sparingly against RHPs, as over the last two seasons he has a .411 wOBA against LHPs compared to a .295 wOBA against RHPs. He looks like an overall better hitter in 2024 than he was in 2023, but fantasy managers should be prepared for him to lose some playing time, likely with the trade of better rate production, after the trade deadline.
   
• Brent Rooker (OF, OAK), another strong candidate to get moved at the trade deadline, broke out as a power hitter in 2023, as the then 28-year-old posted a .246/.329/.488 slash line after hitting .200/.289/.379 over his first three MLB seasons. Rooker has taken another step so far in 2024, slashing .287/.366/.550 in 340 PAs to date, and this step has largely come by completely reversing his results against breaking balls. Rooker crushed fastballs in 2023, hitting .312 with a .632 SLG against them, but only .141 with a .281 SLG against breaking balls. So far in 2024 Rooker has continued to crush fastballs, with a .315 BA and .568 SLG, but has been even better against breaking balls, with a .286 BA and .670 SLG. Rooker’s BA is likely to go down due to a horrendous 32.9 K% in line with his 2023 mark of 32.7%, but as long as he continues to hammer hanging breaking balls the way he has so far in 2024 his power production will likely continue to be among the best in the league.

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