Why Carroll's early season power surge looks legit

With his 5-foot-10, 165-pound frame, nobody is ever going to confuse Corbin Carroll for Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani. But so far this season, the D-backs speedster is slugging like one of the big boys.

Through Friday, Carroll had homered five times in 14 games to start 2025. And it’s not just a matter of jumping on a few early mistakes -- he has been blistering the ball all over the field, whether it leaves the yard or not.

Carroll’s quality of contact has been elite, and his .755 expected slugging percentage reflects it. Although it’s admittedly still very early in the year, a glimpse at the xSLG leaderboard shows the caliber of company the 24-year-old is in.

Highest xSLG, 2025^
Min. 50 plate appearances

1. Pete Alonso: .863
2. Aaron Judge: .780
3. Fernando Tatis Jr.: .764
4. Corbin Carroll: .755
5. Kyle Schwarber: .752
   ^Entering Saturday

That’s a who’s who of some of the game’s most feared sluggers -- and Carroll is right in the middle of it. The other players alongside Carroll in the top five have combined for nine 40-homer seasons.

Nobody projected this kind of pop when Carroll was climbing the prospect ranks, ultimately peaking at No. 2 overall on MLB Pipeline's list prior to 2023.

A perennial 20-homer threat? Sure, that seemed doable for a player whose power received an above-average grade before he debuted. And so far, he’s delivered on that expectation, hitting 25 home runs during his National League Rookie of the Year Award-winning season in 2023, and adding 22 more dingers last season.

But players his size aren’t supposed to challenge the 40-homer mark. Surely, this won’t last. Right? Well, the numbers suggest otherwise.

Here’s why Carroll’s power surge seems like the real deal.

All numbers below are through Friday.

1. This started last year

Carroll’s performance this year is a stark contrast to how he began 2024. In the first half of last season, his power disappeared for months at a time. He didn't hit his second homer of the season until May 7. He took two more months to get his third.

But last July, he began homering at a prolific clip and basically hasn’t stopped. Dating back to July 7, 2024, Carroll has gone deep 25 times.

Most home runs since July 7, 2024

1. 32: Aaron Judge
2. 30: Shohei Ohtani
3. 29: Eugenio Suárez
4. 27: Kyle Schwarber
5. 25: Corbin Carroll // Brent Rooker

Carroll has done that in 85 games -- which roughly extrapolates to a 47-homer pace over the course of a full season.

2. His swing is faster

In general, faster bat speed equals more power. And Carroll is swinging much faster than he did the past two years. (Bat-tracking data is available starting in the second half of 2023.)

Granted, Carroll’s bat speed prior to 2025 was nothing to sneeze at. His average swing was north of 73 mph in both 2023 (73.2 mph) and 2024 (73.7 mph).

But he’s gone to another echelon this year, bumping his average bat speed up to 75.2 mph, which puts him in the top eight percent of MLB hitters.

That’s a particularly notable figure given that Statcast defines a “fast” swing as anything 75 mph or above. Exactly half of Carroll’s swings this season have met that threshold, including all five of his home runs.

Carroll has sacrificed some contact to achieve that result -- his whiff rate has spiked to 28% after sitting at 21% across 2023-24 -- but he’s more than made up for it. That’s because …

3. He’s hitting the ball harder than ever

… the ball is jumping off his bat like never before.

Carroll’s average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate have skyrocketed, with the outfielder ranking in the 93rd percentile or better in all three categories.

While those metrics can be quite noisy in small sample sizes, it’s easier to buy into the improvement knowing that his surge began last year.

Carroll’s batted-ball breakdown since 2023
Average exit velocity // hard-hit rate // barrel rate

• 2023: 90 mph // 40.9% // 7.6%
• 2024 (first half): 87.9 mph // 36.2% // 3.8%
• 2024 (second half): 91.3 mph // 47.8% // 12.5%
• 2025: 96 mph // 63.4% // 19.5%

Even more encouraging? The fact that Carroll has generated multiple batted balls with exit velocities north of 115 mph, an area to which most hitters rarely -- if ever -- venture.

Carroll’s 115.7 mph lineout on March 28 exceeded his previous career high by nearly 2 mph. He topped that with a 115.8 mph triple on April 6.

Carroll also hit the two hardest home runs of his career (111.8 mph and 110.7 mph) on April 4, both off the Nationals’ Jake Irvin.

Hardest-hit batted balls of Carroll’s career:

1. 115.8 mph, April 6, 2025 (triple)
2. 115.7 mph, March 28, 2025 (lineout)
3. 113.8 mph, May 7, 2023 (double)
4. 112.7 mph, June 23, 2023 (single)
5. 111.8 mph, April 4, 2024 (home run)

Max exit velocity can be incredibly telling, revealing a lot about a player’s raw power in a single batted ball. If a hitter is suddenly pushing their max exit velocity to new heights, it’s usually an example of real physical improvement -- because that kind of jump doesn’t happen by accident.

4. He’s hitting the ball to the right part of the park

It’s not just how Carroll is hitting the ball that’s making a difference. Location has also been a factor.

MLB.com’s David Adler recently detailed how some of baseball's more compact power hitters -- think Mookie Betts, José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor -- have managed to punch above their weight by pulling the ball in the air as much as possible.

Carroll has embraced a similar approach. In 2023-24, the outfielder’s rate of pulled air contact (fly balls, line drives and popups) sat around 16%. This year, it’s up to 24.4%, as you can see on Baseball Savant's new batted ball profile leaderboard. For Carroll, it’s another tweak that has carried over from the second half of last season, when his pulled airball rate soared to 23.9% -- up from 11.8% prior to the All-Star break.

Of course, Carroll hasn’t lost his ability to fly on the bases -- he’s still one of the fastest players in the game, even if he hasn’t swiped a bag yet. But now, he’s taking flight in a different way. By launching balls into orbit.