2019 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Carlos Carrasco

Carlos Carrasco continues to be an excellent pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, posting a 17-10 record with a 3.38 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in 2018. Despite landing on the disabled list in June of last season, Carrasco still made 32 appearances (30 starts) in the regular season, marking the second straight season he topped 190 innings of work. While not carrying the big name appeal of a Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw , Carrasco has been one of the better fantasy starting pitchers in the game, especially over the past two seasons. See for yourself:

Despite having some filthy pitches, Carrasco does an excellent job of keeping his walk rate low. Pitchers with a nasty arsenal often deal with command issues, as it’s hard to keep all of that movement in the strike zone; however, Carrasco’s repertoire generates a healthy number of swinging strikes without the elevated walk rate. To illustrate this point, there were only three qualified starting pitchers in all of baseball with a K/9 above 10, and a walk rate below 2.10. Carrasco was one of them, along with teammate Corey Kluber and Boston’s Chris Sale .

For the most part, Carrasco has been a reliable fantasy ace, as he’ll give you in the neighborhood of 185ish innings with a sub-3.40 ERA and over a strikeout per inning of work. The upside certainly is there, but he’s established quite a nice fantasy floor without experiencing too much inflation in his overall ADP. Drafting Carrasco as your fantasy ace provides you the luxury of getting at least one, if not two hitters before selecting your ace, but it’s not as if Carrasco cannot easily outperform his draft value. In fact, over the last two seasons, and three times in the past four seasons, his FIP and xFIP have been lower than his ERA for that season. A bit of bad luck one might say, but defense aside, Carrasco’s performances have been more indicative of a pitcher much closer to a 3.00 ERA.

The ERA took a small jump last season, due to the fact that Carrasco allowed a career-high hard contact percentage (38.9%) and despite allowing fewer fly balls than the year before, his HR/FB ratio was slightly inflated. So, despite him allowing fewer fly balls from the prior seasons, a few more of those fly balls, at least in perspective, sailed over the fences. He did see his ground ball rate slightly increase, albeit still below his career norms, so any increase in that, along with a return to normalcy in hard hit percentage could result in a career best in ERA, and WHIP, for Carrasco.

Another plus in 2018 that bodes well for Carassco is his increased swinging strike rate from last season. By generating a career high 15.3 percent swinging strike rate, he also forced a barrel rate for the opposition of just six percent, which was well below the mark from the prior season. Additionally, the following graph shows how much his change up progressed last season, and really became one of his most effective pitches in 2018.

The whiff rate on Carrasco’s changeup jumped up to 44.4 percent last season, which was well up from the 31.7 percent from the year before. He actually threw the pitch less in 2018 compared to 2017, but generated 18 more strikeouts. The whiff rate on that pitch likely drops a bit in 2018, but it should still be one of his more effective pitches in 2019. The graph can be a bit misleading for his other pitches, but those pitches have remained effective from year to year, and for the most part, they are all above average. Per Baseball Savant, Carrasco’s strikeout percentage (K%) is in the 87^th percentile.

Carrasco will be one of the first 10-15 pitchers off the board in your fantasy league, but his steady floor and potential upside, even in his 32-year-old season will be hard for fantasy owners to turn down in the third round. He has a longer track record of success than Luis Severino and Blake Snell , both of whom are being drafted in front of him, and one could argue that Carrasco’s upside is just as high as the two aforementioned starters, especially if the hard contact rate falls and he further builds upon last year’s career-high 10.83 K/9.

Drafting Carrasco as your SP1 gives you a bona fide ace while allowing you to stack your offense with the two or three picks beforehand.

Statistical Credits
Fangraphs.com
BrooksBaseball.net
thebaseballcube.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com
playnfbc.shgn.com/adp