Corbin Carroll came into the 2024 season with high expectations from everyone after an incredible 2023 season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. A season of overachieving for the young core out of the National League West, Carroll would end up winning the 2023 National League Rookie of the Year Award. After a tough start to this season, Carroll has recovered and has started putting up much better numbers while improving other various parts of his game. He’s still arguably the most crucial piece on this Diamondbacks team that’s looking to make their second straight World Series.
2023 NL Rookie of the Year Winning Season Stats
.285/.362/.506 .868 OPS | 134 OPS+ | 25 HR | 30 2B | 10 3B | 76 RBI | 54 SB
Coming into the 2023 season as the Diamondbacks top prospect and baseball’s number two overall prospect, Carroll exceeded all expectations putting up the numbers he did. Carroll showed his ability to use the entire field at the plate, leading the national league in triples, and hitting 25 home runs of his own. He was fifth in MVP voting in 2023, and earned his first All Star selection.
Despite the numbers Carroll put up and all the awards he received, the advanced numbers showed multiple different spots where Carroll could improve his game. Carroll ranked in the top percent of sprint speed in the entire league, and with 54 stolen bases, there’s nothing there that can really be improved.
However, if Carroll could improve his numbers like exit velocity, as well as hard hit, and barrel rate, then he could take his game to another level. Barrel rate and hard hit rate especially, Carroll ranked average around both of those stats across the league, and improving this could result in even more long balls in the future.
Fans expected similar if not better production out of Carroll in 2024, but he did not have a great start. Carroll hit .188 in the month of April, and didn’t do much better in May hitting for a .202 batting average. He looked like he had just regressed in the first half, having a slashline pre-all star break of .212/.301/.334 for a .635 OPS.
However, since the All Star break he’s looked better. While his batting average in July wasn’t very high, he posted a .310 on base percentage, and a .512 slugging percentage for a .822 OPS. In the month of August, he seemed to return to be the player we previously knew him to be.
In August Carroll hit six home runs and three triples, while recording 12 RBI. His OPS has been .964 so far this month, and his batting average has been the highest it’s been all season in August, sitting at .261. Carroll now has a post-all star OPS of .947.
While Carroll’s numbers haven’t jumped out on paper compared to last season, he’s improved many areas of his offensive approach. Carroll’s improved his plate discipline this season, ranking higher in the chase, whiff, strikeout, and walk rate percentiles. While Carroll won’t likely reach the 54 stolen base mark again this season, he’ll clear his walk total from last season, and hopefully end up with a lower strikeout total.
2023 Percentile Rankings
Chase: 28% (53rd percentile) Whiff: 21.5% (71st percentile) Strikeout: 19.4% (66th percentile) Walk: 8.8% (54th percentile)
2024 Percentile Rankings
Chase: 25.5% (67th percentile) Whiff: 20.0% (77th percentile) Strikeout: 18.0% (71st percentile) Walk: 10.3% (75th percentile)
While it hasn’t entirely translated this season, the approach at the plate has been much better. Carroll has swung less this season at pitches thrown outside of the zone than last year, lowering his 2023 rate of 28.4% to now 24.5%. This season, Carroll’s also been better at making contact with pitches outside of the zone when swinging, and has slightly improved his numbers on contact to pitches inside the zone as well.
Carroll’s exit velocity and hard hit numbers haven’t improved compared to last season, but that can partly be attributed to the slower start in the first half. This month of August however has been the best for Carroll’s hard hit rate numbers against offspeed and breaking pitches. Carroll in August has a 75% hard hit rate on offspeed pitches, and 53.8% hard hit rate on breaking pitches. While the hard hit rate numbers on the offspeed stuff is good now, it needs to be more consistent for those numbers to truly rise.
In the field and on the basepaths Carroll’s been his usual self being great in the field recording 5 outs above average this season, and ranking in the 96th percentile for sprint speed. It’s hard to see those attributes of Carroll’s game regressing given his pure athleticism.
While it was a slow start for Carroll in the first half of this season, he’s revived it well with the last couple of months. In the last 30 days, Carroll’s posted a slashline of .272/.362/.641 for a 1.003 OPS. 2025 should be a massive bounce back year for Carroll, and he’ll continue being a pivotal piece of this Diamondbacks franchise through the remainder of the decade.