Realism On Carrasco
As Eric noted in his post about the Futures Game, the starting pitcher for the World Team was Carlos Carrasco, widely accepted as the best pitching prospect on the international team roster. His name is brought up often in trade speculation, as the Phillies contemplate making a move to improve their major league roster, and he’s universally accepted as Philadelphia’s best prospect.
I’m just wondering, though, if we’re ever going to stop and realize that he’s just not that special?
During the Futures Game, we heard Steve Phillips gush about his electric stuff, all while Carrasco was throwing 88-92 MPH fastballs up in the strike zone. On the big stage, where he can go max effort for one inning, he tops out at 93. That’s not special – that’s average. It’s not just yesterday, either – Carrasco really does possess a fastball that averages around 90-92, which is inherently unspecial.
His calling card is a nasty change-up that sits in the low-80s and with sink that makes it a real weapon against left-handed batters. That’s a premium pitch, no doubt. However, his breaking ball is average at best, and just isn’t a knockout pitch. Realistically, he’s a fastball-changeup guy with a breaking ball that he’ll mix in occasionally.
That one plus pitch repertoire shows up in his minor league performance to date, which simply doesn’t match the hype he’s received. In 396 innings of work over four seasons, he’s racked up a grand total of 350 strikeouts for a 7.95 K/9 mark. That would be a fine mark in the majors, but once you adjust that performance to account for the inferior competition, it’s about equal to 6.0 K/9 in the major leagues.
That’s about a major league average strikeout rate, and there are certainly pitchers who are very effective with that kind of swing-and-miss percentage, but it’s almost always because they have another elite skill – either great command or a fantastic sinker that creates a lot of ground balls in most cases. Carrasco doesn’t possess either of those things. His command is average at best, a problem at worst, and while his fastball has movement, it’s not a sinker.
Realistically, Carrasco projects out right now as a 3.5 BB, 6.0 K, 45% GB% guy. That’s not an ace in the making – that’s the current iteration of Kevin Millwood. Toss in the injury concerns (Carrasco isn’t a picture of health) and we really have to ask ourselves what the big deal is.
Carrasco has a chance to be a nice back-of-the-rotation major league starter, and his change-up should allow him to keep lefties from beating him up, but I fail to see any evidence that he’s a premium prospect, or that teams should be lining up to convince Pat Gillick to give them Carrasco in exchange for their all-star major leaguers.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
From what I’ve read and heard, Carrasco’s typical velocity is 92-95 with good movement, getting a decent number of ground balls. It was likely less than that at the Futures Game because it was only his second appearance coming off of a mild shoulder injury that made him miss a start or two.
It’s possible you’re correct, but he’s very well regarded by scouts and is still young for his level, so I think he could easily become more than just a back end starter.
If I understand you, if Carrasco was moved to the majors today, he would be a 3.5 BB, 6.0 K, 45% GB pitcher (I assume that is what you mean when you adjust his present performance in AA for his level of competition). Nothing special, I agree.
But the guy is only 21, so your numbers do not build in any future projection. He is the same age as Jeremy Hellickson, yet has much more experience and more success at the same level. He is 1.5 years younger than David Price and Wade Davis.
Obviosly he isn’t even close to Price’s level, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that when Price was 21, he was pitching at Vanderbilt against vastly inferior talent, whereas Carrasco is putting up good (but not great) numbers at AA. Age absolutely has to be considered. Carrasco is one of the younger pitchers in AA.
Maybe you are right in saying that he is not as good a prospect as the hype surrounding him (not that the hype is deafening, he is not considered an elite prospect like Price or as good of a prospect as Davis). But it is not fair to ignore his age when evaluating his present performance.
In general I agree that he isn’t a premium prospect, but I do think there is some upside.
Normally his fastball has been reported the low to mid 90s, and he throws a two-seam with some decent movement. He has tendency to to slow down his arm speed when he throws his changeup and does the same with his curveball as well. If he did a better job of selling his pitches, batters would have more of a problem guessing on him, which would increase his swinging strike%.
On the negative side though, I’ve also noticed that his arm is late at footstrike; which may explain the problems hes had with injuries.
Hes interesting, but I sure as heck hope the Ms don’t trade Bedard for him.
As a Phillies fan, I agree with the last commenter’s sentiment…I really hope they don’t trade Carrasco to the M’s for Bedard.
It’s also been said they wouldn’t talk about Carrasco in a deal for CC, so I don’t really think that talking about some of these numbers or the other things is actually bringing “realism” to the discussion at all. The Phillies have done a good job bringing Carrasco up slowly and I think they know what they’re doing with him. It seems to me that the Phillies future looks good with a Hamels-Carrasco 1-2 punch.