Corbin Carroll Poised for Major Breakout in 2025

One of the early stories for the Diamondbacks' 2025 season has been the hot start by Corbin Carroll. Through the first 13 games of the season, the outfielder is hitting .320 with a team-leading five home runs and a 1.164 OPS. His OPS leads all qualified hitters in the National League and his 1.2 bWAR/1.3 fWAR leads all of Major League Baseball at the time of this writing.

The hot start for Carroll is a great sign for both him and the Diamondbacks. There is more pressure on him to produce with Ketel Marte out for "a series of weeks" at the top of the lineup. Carroll has been more than up to the challenge so far.

In the offseason, Carroll made a change to his batting stance to get the barrel to the spot he wants better. The early returns have been very encouraging for him.

"He works hard to get his hands in that slot and get his foot down, just being under control and making good swing decisions," said Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo. "He's slowing down that movement. It looks like a very aggressive setup, but if you take a look at it, the hands are moving on time and they're getting right into that hole where they need to fire. That's what every player looks for."

The bat tracking data from Statcast shows a significant improvement in that regard. His bat speed is up from 73.7 MPH in 2024 to 74.7 in 2025. His percentage of swings that are 75.0 MPH or higher, labeled a fast swing, has drastically increased from 29.7% to 48.3%.

With Carroll's improvement in swing speed, and the number of fast swings, he's making contact further out in front of home plate by 0.6 inches. As a result, he's had a significant improvement in the quality of contact in the season's early stages. His hard-hit rate has jumped from 40.8% to 63.2%, and his average exit velocity is up to a staggering 96.0 MPH.

Carroll noted that positive change to reporters on Wednesday, including Diamondbacks On SI's Jack Sommers.

"I think [the stance change has] helped a little bit. I think the swing is pretty similar. It's just a little bit different starting position, but I think I get to a very similar spot. But it feels good, and I'm going to continue to roll with it. ... I think where I start allows me to get to that spot a little bit better and just be able to turn on some of those high pitches," Carroll said.

He's put 38 balls into play so far, with 20 of them (52.6%) with an exit velocity of at least 100 MPH. That ranks third amongst all major league hitters behind Shohei Ohtani and Pete Alonso, two notable sluggers who combined for 88 home runs in 2024.

"I think [I'm] hitting a lot of balls hard, hitting a lot of balls hard, in the air, off the ground, some line drives. That's been really positive, and trying to keep that going," Carroll said.

Not only is Carroll hitting the ball hard in terms of raw exit velocities, but he's also hitting the ball in the air to his pull field more. He already has 10 such batted balls (26.3%) on the season, in which he's 7-for-10 with four home runs. His average exit velocity on such contact is 102.7 MPH, eight MPH higher than the MLB average of 94.6 MPH.

Because he is hitting the ball extremely hard to his pull field in the air, it's no surprise that Carroll is amongst the league leaders in barrels. Through 13 games, he has already registered eight barrels, the fourth-highest total in MLB up to this point of the season. His 21.1% barrel per batted ball and 13.6% barrel per plate appearance both rank in the Top 20.

The combination of hard contact and the ideal type of contact has Carroll near the top of the leaderboards in most of the expected batting metrics. His .502 xwOBA sits in the 100th percentile while his .367 xBA and .796 xSLG rank in the 97th and 99th percentiles. To put it in other words, the quality of contact has him amongst the game's best hitters.

If there is only one negative to Carroll's start, it's that his chase rate is a bit high at 31.7%. It's not as much of a concern, as he sports a career rate of 26.6%. He's still drawing walks at a high clip of 10.2%, so it hasn't negatively affected his on-base ability yet.

That could change as teams become more wary of pitching to him and elect to take their chances with someone else in the lineup. Carroll always has the speed element in his game to take advantage of walks, plus Geraldo Perdomo, Pavin Smith, and Josh Naylor all being blistering hot at the same time increases the likelihood that a walk will turn into a run.

While the sample size is relatively small, the data still suggests that Carroll is taking the next step in his development as a hitter and establishing himself as a perennial MVP candidate. It will be a tough race in 2025, with Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker also off to impressive starts for the Dodgers and Cubs.

The question for Carroll will be not only health but the sustainability of this run. With him under contract through the 2030 season, having a perennial MVP candidate in his prime will do a lot in keeping the Diamondbacks' contention window open beyond the 2025 season.