Another example of a guy on a super hot streak not bothering to walk.
Catricala came up to AA and had some kind of superhuman BABIP and ripped off 42 hits in his first 28 games. He only walked 5 times and had 22 K, so it looked like his eye ratio was slipping.
But, like Carp, he's had solid eye in the past. In High Desert he had 33 BB/45 K.
In August, he's a little more normal (though still killing the ball), and his eye has reverted -- 14 BB/17 K in August.
So: 0.73 in Cali, 0.28 during the hot streak, 0.82 in August
I think with both Cat and Carp it's a matter of being hot and facing pitchers unfamiliar with them, and not "needing to" and "bothering to" walk.
Which may be why Churchill (his new top 30 is not behind the pay wall -- cool) has Vinnie at No. 4 ... ahead of Franklin and Campos [!]. Scouts are buying in to what the numbers are saying.
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On a 1-1 pitch, Zach McAllister threw Carp a 90 mph fastball right in on his hands, far enough in that it might have been a ball. Here's the GameDay - go to the 3rd inning to find the pitch location.
Carp pulled his hands in, turned on it and launched it 443 feet to right field. Here's the flight path.
The 3rd-longest Mariner HR this season, behind Peguero's 451-footer and this 468-footer by Wily Mo a couple days ago.
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If you missed the memo, Dept: Carp hit 50 homers in his last 176 games in AAA, which rates out to 44 homers per 155-game season.
He's now got 7 in 31 games since the callup, on pace for 35 homers per 155-game full season. If he actually hits those 35 in 2012, he's going to emerge as a star.
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=== Nooooo Doubt About It, Dept. ===
Carp has averaged 412 feet on his seven home runs in 2011, compared to an AL average of 394 feet. Josh Hamilton has averaged 410.
You might be thinking that if you're capable of hitting them extra far, you can probably hit them frequently. You'd be right. The HR distance leaderboard is always packed with homer champs like Fielder, Upton, Cruz, Howard and co.
Mikey has been focusing on keeping the 3-iron in the fairway, and so has built up 20-game hitting streaks as opposed to running the homer totals up. But trading AL batting average for AL homers would be the logical next step in his progression.
Carp and Robinson have come up to the bigs and looked for contact first, power later. That's the right way. Good on them.
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=== Happy Totals, Dept. ===
Carp's 2011 season performance (via wRC+) -- if you include his first callup -- leads Kevin Youkilis' now, 139-133. His lifetime OBP in the big leagues is a hefty .361, so as a ribbie man he makes a pretty good cleanup hitter. His line drive rate remains at 28% on the year.
Since being called up, he was .350/.391/.575 before the titanic homer on Tuesday. The July and August splits for yer:
- .349/.378/.581 - July
- .351/.398/.571 - August
We could crunch this as "consistency," but you'd probably heard about his 20-game hitting streak before we got here.
....
Blowers had an interesting comment on the 20-gamer: "It's awfully hard to stay in a groove that long." Hitting, and concentration, runs like a sine wave for major leaguers. That, to me, is the interesting thing about hitting streaks. You're talking about stretched-out wavelength on the UP crests. :- )
In physics, longer waves are more relaxed. Ichiro could tell you about relaxing your way into extended "zones". You know how young, excitable players (like Justin Smoak) go through lots of ups and downs. You know how grizzled veterans (like Roy Halladay) stay in rhythm all season.
What people say about Carp is that "he acts like he belongs here." His wavelength agrees. He is evidencing inner peace with his fate.
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It is odd, too, that a lefty 35-homer man should run a 20-game hitting streak. :whew:
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=== R-E-S-P-E-C-Teee find out what it meeeans to me ===
The last remaining question on Carp is his EYE: 0.20 to 0.23 is a below the limits of where he's "allowed" to be. There are few Alfonso Sorianos playing well at 0.20.
This question is much less worrying for him than it would be for (say) Trayvon Robinson, since Carp has shown very strong EYEs in the past, including in the big leagues. Carp is evidently choosing to dial up his attack. In his case, the EYE does not indicate an inability to tell a ball from a strike. He's proven that he can.
So if you ask why Carp would not continue to hit close to .300 with 35 homers, SSI wouldn't have an answer for you.
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It's not that Carp's strikeouts are too high; Carp is at 22%, whereas Ryan Howard is at 26%, Curtis Granderson at 24%, etc. It's that his walks are too low. What is odd is that AL pitchers have not yet begun walking Mike Carp. Strange that they don't yet buy in, don't you think?
You wonder if this 443-foot shot will be the turning point on respect.
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Baker has a nice little Wedge interview in which Carp is, more or less, acknowledged as the Mariners' cleanup hitter going forward.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
Sometime in the '10 off-season Carp made the transition from a high OBP guy with moderate power to a slugger who goes to the plate looking for the one mistake he might get than then mashes it. He's now a stalker.
Good MLB'ers make that transistion. Carp did it at age 23.
Doc, do you have Spring Training #'s from '10? would be interesting to see if Carp's new approach showed up in Arizona. I'm assuming it did.
As a MiLB guy, Carp walked 90 points, At AAA it was 80 pts. In '11 he's "only" walking 60 pts. And that number will go up as pitchers begin to nibble more and more.
Doc, you're dead right. The homer from last night was on a ball well inside. The catcher set up on the black and was moving his glove toward Carp to receive the pitch. The ball was up a bit and tailing back toward the plate and Carpy lit it up. He got his pitch.
When you can't make a mistake off the plate inside then you only have one place to go. But unless your contro is that of Greg Maddux it is pretty dang hard to live on that outside black one inch stripe. And we've seen Carp punish the outside mistake the other way, anyway.
Carp's swinging at just 2/3 of the pitches IN the strike zone (just over 1/3 outside). 50% of the pitches he sees he doesn't swing at. So he's not up there hacking. He's waiting. When he gets the one he looking for he's not missing. Anybody know what he's hitting when he's ahead in the count?
Can he string seasons of .300+? I don't know. But with the transistion that he's made he's a whale of a player hitting .280.
Another first-order insight that I haven't seen before. Would be interested in seeing research on it.
Makes sense on many levels, starting with the fact that if a high % of swings are putting the ball into play, then the counts don't go deep. Think Ichiro.
Also, there's the idea of seeing the ball great, and attacking as soon as you see a pitch you like (which is a lot of them).
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Blowers mentioned this last night: that Carp had been attacking pitchers early in the count, and had gotten away from it a bit.
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Am going to watch for this idea.
Carp: .375/.556/.500
Incidently, Seager's even better: .391/.548/.609