As I followed Carlos' assent through the Mets minors and up to the big club last year, I was always troubled by his free swinging style and lack of any sense of the strike zone. A talented athlete, he has all of the physical tools to excel at the major league level, but he is missing one key ingredient--the ability to identify a strike and swing at the pitch that will bring him the highest chance of success.
He has been pretty up and down with the Twins this year, and the latest trends on him are not favorable.
Here are his numbers and projections thus far in 2008:
| 2008 Season Stats | ||||||||||||||||
| SPLITS | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Season | 22 | 94 | 12 | 24 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 24 | 10 | 1 | .255 | .271 | .362 | .633 |
| Career | 79 | 216 | 24 | 51 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 18 | 10 | 51 | 21 | 4 | .236 | .276 | .324 | .600 |
| Last 7 | 5 | 22 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | .136 | .136 | .273 | .409 |
| Projected | 161 | 688 | 88 | 176 | 37 | 7 | 7 | 44 | 15 | 176 | 73 | 7 | .255 | .271 | .362 | .633 |
Of note is his K to BB ration: 12 to 1. As you can see at the bottom of the chart, he is "on pace" for 175 strikeouts against 15 walks.
The positives are the speed numbers--10 stolen bases with only 1 caught stealing, 12 runs scored despite only being on base 26 times, etc.
So we'll play a bit of a wait and see game with young Carlos--he's an easy guy to root for, and his measurable statistics will get better. Will he ever achieve all-star status? That's a big question mark, and it all depends on his ability to learn the strike zone and become a better pitch selector.
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