All year long — from MLB spring training on — Diamondbacks rookie Corbin Carroll has been the odds-on favorite to win National League Rookie of the Year. Even after top prospect Elly De La Cruz briefly took over the baseball world, Carroll maintained his status as the ROY frontrunner. Now, approaching the halfway point of the regular season, the stud outfielder has also emerged as a top candidate to win an even bigger piece of hardware: NL MVP.
The 22-year-old Seattle native may play in a small market, but he's putting together a massive campaign in his first full season as a pro. Carroll leads the NL in OPS+ (165), thanks in large part to his 14 home runs and 34 total extra-base hits. He's slashing .306/.391/.596 and has scored 51 runs while driving in 35. He has stolen 19 bases and showcased a defensive skill set that would make most veteran centerfielders blush.
Simply put, there's nothing this guy can't do — he's a legit five-tool star. And it makes all the sense in the world that D-backs GM and executive VP Mike Hazen locked him into an eight-year, $111 million contract extension in March after witnessing him play just 32 big-league games in 2022.
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Now that the De La Cruz hysteria has settled a bit, and the Diamondbacks have jumped the Dodgers to move into No. 1 in the NL West, MLB media has started to notice just how much impact Carroll has been making on this young Arizona club. Hell, Torrey Lovullo's squad isn't just leading the division — it's two wins shy of the Braves for the best record National League.
And to most pundits — and really, anyone with a shred of MLB knowledge — the D-backs are doing more with less than the 2021 World Series champions. But does that check a large enough MVP box for Carroll — being the best player on the hottest NL team?
Not quite — Carroll sits at +1400 to win the NL's most coveted individual award (and -350 to win Rookie of the Year). But the centerfielder continues to rise as his numbers increase, and if he continues this torrid run — he's currently on pace for a nearly 30/50 season — Carroll becoming a top-two favorite in the near future is looking like more and more of a possibility.
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Of course, Ronald Acuna Jr., the star centerfielder of the aforementioned Braves, still resides atop the NL MVP futures board with -140 odds. Acuna has a better batting average (.331) and OBP (.403), 10 more steals, and one more home run than Carroll — and as we mentioned, Atlanta has the best record in the NL. He's also been really good for a really long time, and this is the first season we have seen him completely healthy (knock on wood if you're with me).
Acuna's -140 odds translate to an implied win probability of a little over 58 percent, which is a pretty solid number for an awards race. In tight races, typically even the odds-on favorite is listed with plus odds at this stage of the season (of course, with Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez both on the IL right now, Shohei Ohtani is -400 to win AL MVP — which is just insane to think about in mid-June).
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The Dodgers' Freddie Freeman (+500) and Mookie Betts (+900) – both former MVPs for their former teams (the Braves and Red Sox) — also stand between Carroll and the top MVP odds. But those guys could very well cancel each other out, especially if the Dodgers keep stumbling into the summer and Carroll continues to evolve into a superstar.
It's not just rookie hype and counting stats fueling Carroll's meteoric rise up the odds boards. He has provided plenty of fodder for the sabermetrics crowd and stat nerds, as well. His 3.3 WAR ranks fifth in the majors. His 3.3 offensive WAR is tied with Acuna for the best in baseball. His sprint speed puts him in the 99th percentile of all MLB players. His weighted on-base average is in the 97th percentile. His maximum exit velocity is in the 91st percentile. And he's 22.
The rookie wall might not be coming — Hell, the rookie wall for this dude might have been his five-homer, 13-RBI month of May, during which he hit .267. He's hitting .367 in June, and has already matched his May homer and RBI total in 12 fewer games. He's compiled 41 total bases in 49 June at-bats. His OPS this month: 1.283. Only Ohtani and the Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr. have a better June OPS in 56-plus plate appearances.
Corbin Carroll is out of control pic.twitter.com/hFLxtLjeXz
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 14, 2023
As far as we're concerned, this rocket-ship trajectory tells us that Corbin Carroll has become the bet to make for NL MVP. We're happy we already have bets in on Acuna Jr. when he was still at +110 on the off-chance Carroll slows down or the D-backs start losing — but how can we avoid the value we're getting with the rookie at +1400? The media loves storylines — Carroll becoming the third rookie to ever win MVP would be a huge one. The last player to win MVP and Rookie of the Year? Ichiro. The only other player (bar trivia for your weekend, anyone?): Red Sox great Fred Lynn.
Get in before the iron gets too hot and the action gets too heavy for us to touch this. We don't want to end up with the market getting flooded like we saw with De La Cruz, and suddenly the value and potential payout is diminished but we're still flocking like card collectors during COVID. Anything above +1000 is a great value for this five-tool sensation, especially considering he's enjoying a slightly better statistical month than Acuna.
Let's buy some shares of history here and bet the kid to pull off the improbable. Let's put $50 on Carroll to win MVP and enjoy one of the coolest $800 cash-outs of all time when he becomes the third player in 76 years to win MVP and Rookie of the Year. Sorry, De La Cruz faithful...the NL has returned to its regularly-scheduled program "The Corbin Carroll Show," and ratings are about to skyrocket. Get in on the action before the odds do, too.