SAN FRANCISCO — With outfielder Stone Garrett being called up by the D-backs on Wednesday some fans wondered what that meant for Triple-A Reno outfielder Corbin Carroll, who is ranked as the team’s top prospect (No. 3 overall) and is crushing the ball.
For D-backs GM Mike Hazen, the answer was simple: The D-backs were looking for a right-handed bat with some power to balance their lineup.
“Stone has nothing to do with Corbin. We called Stone up for a specific reason for our Major League team right now,” Hazen said.
Garrett, 26, made his big league debut after eight years in the Minors on Wednesday and collected a pair of doubles, an RBI and a run scored.
Garrett was back in the lineup Thursday when the D-backs wrapped up their four-game set against the Giants with a 5-0 win behind Zac Gallen, who struck out a career-best 12 in 7 1/3 innings.
Carroll’s time is coming. Whether that’s later this month, September or next year. But before it does, the D-backs would like to see him get some more Triple-A at-bats. Heading into Thursday’s game, Carroll, who opened the year with Double-A Amarillo before being promoted to Reno in early July, had played a total of just 134 Minor League games in his career.
“He’s clearly gone to Triple-A and gotten acclimated very quickly,” Hazen said. “At the end of the day, he has played in [134] Minor League games. I would be hard pressed to go back and find a player who has probably climbed through the system as a high school kid in 130 games on the precipice of the big leagues. Now, that’s a credit to him, but there’s still some things, both offensively and defensively, I want to be sure of before we call him up.”
Carroll was the D-backs’ first-round pick in the 2019 Draft. He spent the 2020-pandemic season at the team’s alternate site and appeared in seven games with High-A Hillsboro in 2021 before a shoulder injury ended his season.
Despite all that, Corbin has passed every test the organization has thrown at him. He hit .313/.430/.643 for Amarillo and was hitting .310/.421/.530 for Reno.
Offensively, the D-backs have little doubt he’ll succeed at the big league level, but they want him to have a good base of Minor League at-bats under his belt first.
“He’s raked everywhere he’s been,” Hazen said. “So I don’t really have concerns, necessarily, other than … young hitters coming up to the big leagues, and they all kind of go through that struggle, and he’s going to have fewer at-bats under his belt than anybody we’ ve probably ever called up. And that’s fine, he’s that talented, but it’s something we’re all aware of. Accruing as much experience as possible, even though that’s not going to last forever, nor should it, is important, I think. “
Carroll also excels on the defensive side of things, playing an outstanding center field throughout his career.
However, the D-backs like the way Alek Thomas plays center, so when Carroll does come up, he will likely play one of the outfield corners and while he has done some of that in the Minors, he’s mainly played center so getting him more reps in the corners is a priority right now.
“I do feel like he should have a chance to come up here at some point this year,” Hazen said. “I would like to get him acclimated a little bit. I’m hoping he’s going to have a chance to break with our team next year coming out of Spring Training, so getting some of those at-bats under his belt up here will be part of that. Going through the struggles, to whatever that might mean, I do think is important. We’re weighing all of those factors. I think at some point in the near future we’re going to be talking about it, as we sort of climb towards the end of the Minor League season.”
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