Carlos Carrasco, RHP
Signed: 2003 [Free Agent]
Debut: 2004 [GCL]
Baseball Cube Page
Baseball-Reference Page
MinorLeagueSplits Page
First Inning Page
Fangraphs Page
Career Register
Scouting Report (Baseball America, 11/13/07)
Strengths: Carrasco has the makings of two plus pitches with the potential for a third. His fastball has outstanding late life, and is at its best when he works between 89-93 mph. When he needs it, he can touch 94-95. He complements the fastball with the best changeup in the system, and he commands it to both sides of the plate with good depth and fade. His curveball continued to make strides in 2007, ranging from a soft 71-72 mph breaker to a harder 76-78 mph offering that more resembles a slider. His body allows him to unleash all his pitches from a steep downhill plane, and when he’s on, he pounds the strike zone.
Weaknesses: As good as Carrasco’s pure stuff is, he struggled with runners on base in 2007. When he’d get into trouble, he’d rush through his delivery with his lower half and drag his arm behind his body. That would cause his front shoulder to fly open, costing him command. The Phillies attribute these problems to Carrasco’s youth, though he did show signs of improvement later in the year. He’ll need to make quicker adjustments as he moves along, especially with pitch selection. With the quality of his secondary pitches, Carrasco should profile as a groundball pitcher with enough power in his fastball to miss bats when he has to. Yet in Double-A, his groundout/airout ratio was a mere 0.7.
Rankings
2007: Phillies #1 (Baseball America)
2006: Phillies #1 (Baseball America), #41 Overall (Baseball America), Phillies #1 (Baseball Prospectus), #37 Overall (Baseball Prospectus)
Articles and Features
Baseball America Q/A [9/7/06]
Article on his 2A Debut
Rotoworld’s NL East Prospects Feature
Saberscouting Report
Baseball-Intellect scouting report
Video
Images
December 9, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Will WordPress allow you to plug in an RSS feed to body of the article? If so, possibly add a Google News Search RSS feed for each player.
December 10, 2007 at 2:23 pm
That’s a good concept, but WordPress won’t allow individual RSS feeds posted within a post. I can have a general RSS feed linked on the main blog page, but not on specific pages.
January 9, 2008 at 6:15 pm
http://rotoworld.com/content/features/column.aspx?sport=MLB&columnid=3&articleid=29789&pg=3
An extremely projectable pitcher, Carlos Carrasco has two electric fastballs, a 72-78 mph curve and the best change-up in the Phillies system. Impressive command and arm action, it stands to reason that because he can repeat his ¾ arm delivery that he should stay relatively injury free. One concern is that he does pitch with effort, which could wear him down early in games. He also struggled after his promotion, leading to command/hr rate woes as well as struggles with runners on base. However, he still projects as a power ground ball pitcher, and he is still quite young for how far he’s progressed. The question that remains is will he be able to solve his inconsistency?
While it is unlikely that Carrasco is called up this season, there is a remote chance that he gets bullpen work down the stretch for a playoff run. Whether or not Philadelphia wants to toy with that inconsistency in pressure filled games remains to be seen. There is also the small chance that Adam Eaton does not work out, and if Carrasco is dominating the Eastern League, he’s given the opportunity. He could definitely move up this list, and has a bright future ahead of him as one of the best young arms in the game.
January 26, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Not sure if this is the right place for this or not, but I saw on Baseball America’s web site that Carrasco was one of only four team #1 prospects to not make Jim Callis’ Top 50 prospects list. He did write that Carrasco “narrowly missed the cut,” but that’s still a rather sobering commentary on the Phillies system. Here’s the link: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/ask-ba/2008/265522.html
January 28, 2008 at 11:21 pm
2007 Futures Game video added. Hat tip to The Fish for providing the link.
February 5, 2008 at 3:47 am
ive looked all over the net looking for any other videos of this guy…..no luck, does anyone have anything more on this guy….not complaining but the video posted only shows two pitches…i cant really get a feel for him
April 10, 2008 at 1:22 am
Mark, it isn’t a lot, but you can get his entire Future’s Game performance by clicking the link, scrolling to the bottom and finding the 2007 Futures Game video.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/events/asg/y2007/futures.jsp
He pitches early (2nd and 3rd innings I believe) so the load time isn’t too long. Hope this helps!!