A Good Sign for Mike Carp

We've heard alot about Mike Carp in the last month or so, and for good reason. His 367 wOBA in 206 plate appearences has been a legitimate contribution to a big league baseball team, and it's come after being written off by most (including myself) as a permanent AAA baseball player with no future as a Major leaguer. But what seems to be discussed more than his success, is the question of will he be able to continue any where near this level of production in the future.

The biggest thing we point to when suggesting that carp cannot continue to produce, would be Carp's walk rate. walking 6.8% of the time is worriesome when you strike out as much as Carp does. But let's talk about why walks are important. There are a few reasons. The first is obvious, the direct production of getting on base. there are 27 outs to play with in baseball and the most important offensive skill is not producing one of those outs, walking is a form of that skill. But what is perhaps more applicable to Carp's game specifically, is how walks affect production as a power hitter. We've seen time and time again, particularly in the 2011 Mariners season, that a hitter can have all the power in the world but if he doesn't have a decent plate approach, that power is unproductive (i.e. Carlos Peguero). Walks are vitale to Carp not so much for the production of getting on base, but to force pitchers to give him something that he can drive. Along with this new found production out of Mike Carp will come a different approach from opposing pitchers and Carp will see more pitches out of the zone. If and when pitchers approach Carp by pitching around him with pitches off the plate trying to get him to chase, the challenge for carp will obviously be to lay off these pitches and take a walk. And we cannot fully evaluate his ability to do that until pitchers start to pitch around him with more pitches out of the zone. In Thursday night's game, it happened.

After driving in runs late in 2 ball games vs. the Angels in the span of three nights, Carp found an opportunity to make it three, in the 8th inning of thursday night's game, facing his victim from the previous night, Scott Downs. However instead of getting pitches that he could drive like in his previous at bats, Carp saw this

75 mph curveball off the plate away: ball one

90 mph sinker off the plate away: ball two

75 mph curveball in the dirt (on a 2-0 count): ball three

89 mph sinker off the plate away: ball four

"There's some respect" said Blowers. with a one run lead and the bases empty, Scott Downs deliberately stayed away from Carp trying to get him to chase pitches out of the zone, and Carp did not.

For Carp, The strike outs are a problem, the .389 BABIP wont last, and as a result neither will his 300 average. But if Carp can show that he has the ability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone, as he did on thursday, and force pitchers to give him something to drive, he's got a legitimate shot to be a 25-30 Home run guy in the big leagues. Obviously a sample size of one at bat does not even come close to providing any type of conclusion and a 4 pitch walk isn't exactly a good indicator. But it does raise an example of a big test for Carp that we can watch for in the final month of this season. Does carp have the ability to take pitches out of the strike zone if and when pitchers choose to pitch around him? We've got a month to find out.