Opinion: Healthy Carrasco Would Be Huge Boost To Mets Rotation

In what was an extremely disappointing 2021 season, which saw the New York Mets miss the playoffs for a fifth straight year, starter Carlos Carrasco served as one of the club’s biggest underperformers and failed to deliver on his high expectations.

Despite those failures, all may not be lost for the 34-year-old pitcher.

Acquired in a blockbuster trade from the Cleveland Guardians last offseason, the same deal that also brought shortstop Francisco Lindor to Queens, Carrasco was expected to help solidify the Mets’ starting rotation led by ace Jacob deGrom. Unfortunately, his season was derailed by injury almost as soon as spring training began.

Thanks to a torn hamstring, the right-hander’s season debut was delayed until Jul. 30, when he made his first start in blue and orange against the Cincinnati Reds. Adding to his injury-riddled performance, the veteran hurler also battled through an elbow injury for seemingly most of the summer, which required surgery back in October.

Needless to say, Carrasco’s inaugural campaign in New York was overtaken by a pair of significant injuries, both of which likely played huge factors towards his miserable 6.04 ERA and 5.22 FIP from this past season. But if he returns to full health in 2022, could these struggles disappear?

At this stage of his career, that’s all anyone is hoping for heading into next season.

For a pitcher that’s set to turn 35-years-old in March, staying on the field consistently through a 162-game schedule is usually easier said than done, especially for someone like Carrasco, who hasn’t completed 100 innings in a single season since 2018.

Between battling leukemia in 2019, enduring the shortened 2020 campaign and his injuries from last season, these last three years have been anything but ordinary for the 6’4″ starter. Not to mention, the majority of that span has occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic – not something that can easily be pushed aside, particularly for a cancer survivor.

Looking ahead to 2022, Carrasco is entering one of the most crucial seasons of his professional career, as his current contract will either expire or extend through 2023 depending on his health status. If he compiles at least 170 innings next season, his $14 million vesting option will kick in for the following year, which also includes a $3 million buyout.

Based on his age and recent injury history, entering free agency next winter probably wouldn’t be the most profitable decision as he’d likely be limited to a low-risk, high-reward type of contract. With that in mind, the former front-line starter will need to prove he can stay on the field and perform at a high level to avoid that troubling outcome.

Presuming Carrasco’s elbow surgery was successful, receiving a clean bill of health could potentially open him up to a strong bounce-back performance in 2022. In particular, one of the biggest areas where he could witness improvement involves his ability to induce high amounts of strikeouts.

From 2017-2020, the native of Venezuela posted a 28.0% strikeout rate or higher during each of those four seasons. But in 2021, his percentage dropped significantly below that threshold, falling to a 21.1% clip – his lowest rate since 2013 (13.8%).

Digging deeper into this matter, Carrasco’s strikeout rate declined by 8.2% last season (29.3% in ’20), which was the 16th-largest decrease in the majors among all qualified pitchers, according to BaseballSavant.com.

What caused this sudden change? Can it be blamed on the bone fragment that needed to be removed from his elbow? Possibly. Or what about the crackdown on foreign substances, did that play a factor? It’s unclear.

For now, let’s remain optimistic and hope it was the latter of those two options.

As for how this development affected Carrasco’s pitches, every offering except for his slider experienced some sort of negative impact regarding their strikeout totals last season. In addition, he also reduced the usage of his premier swing-and-miss weapon (slider) and threw more four-seamers, largely making both pitches less effective.

Over his six seasons from 2015-2020, Carrasco’s four-seamer only exceeded a 40% usage once (’17) and for the most part, ranged in the mid-30s during that span. Changing that narrative this past season, his primary fastball was utilized 39.5% of the time – an increase of 4.8% from ’20.

Sadly, this increased usage didn’t lead to quality results as his heater performed to a concerning .297 AVG, .254 xAVG, .622 SLG (career-worst), .509 xSLG, .406 wOBA and a .358 xwOBA through 61 batted-ball events.

And yet, the former international free agent still reduced the frequency of his most-effective breaking ball, as its usage dropped from 27.2% in ’20 to just 20% in ’21. As a result, it served as his third-most employed pitch after it had been utilized as either his first or second option in each of the three previous seasons.

So why didn’t Carrasco lean on his secondary pitches, more specifically, his slider, rather than continuing to call upon his four-seamer? Well, his elbow injury may have been responsible for that as his primary breaking ball continued down a troubling path.

Exploring its vertical movements, the righty’s slider averaged 39.1 inches of drop in 2019, however, it’s declined over the previous two seasons and reached a career-worst mark of 29.7 inches in 2021. In turn, his breaking ball hung up in the strike zone far too often, leading to a 29.4% flyball rate, a .481 SLG and a .461 xSLG – all three metrics were career-worsts.

Making matters worse, along with experiencing a dramatic decrease in vertical movement, Carrasco’s slider also took a massive hit regarding its spin rate, which suddenly dropped to an average of 2,383 RPMs last season.

In comparison, his slider’s spin rate averaged 2,693 RPMs from 2018-2020, including a peak of 2,793 RPMs during the 60-game schedule. So why the drastic decline during the following season?

If Carrasco’s elbow injury was causing him considerable discomfort, which at this point, is fair to assume, it likely motivated him to alter his pitching mechanics to help relieve some of that pain. Additionally, this would also explain why he continued to reduce his breaking ball’s usage, especially if this injury bothered him even before last season.

Now that he’s healthy once again, obviously, the focus point will shift to keeping things that way and reverting back to what’s worked for him in the past – equally leaning on both his slider and four-seamer while complimenting these two pitches with his changeup.

For a Mets squad that signed superstar Max Scherzer in free agency, the hope is to have him strengthen the club’s already talented starting rotation that’s now headlined by a big three – so to speak – of deGrom, Scherzer and Carrasco. If all three starters remain healthy, this franchise could possess one of the top pitching trios in the majors – if not the best.

So as disappointing as last season was for Carrasco, a return to full health appears to be his best chance of making a quick turnaround in 2022.

For everyone’s sake, let’s hope it plays out that way.

The post Opinion: Healthy Carrasco Would Be Huge Boost To Mets Rotation first appeared on Metsmerized Online.