Carson Kelly for 10th Man of the Year

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

In the last decade—and especially on this side of the COVID-19 disruption—we've seen MLB teams move from the traditional starter-backup catching arrangement to one much closer to an even timeshare. The Cubs signed Carons Kelly in late 2024 to accommodate their move toward that very model. With Miguel Amaya establishing himself as (they hoped) the catcher of the present and future, Chicago looked to Kelly to provide stability and keep Amaya's workload relatively low, given his long history of injury trouble.

To whatever extent the goal was to keep Amaya healthy, the plan failed. The younger backstop went down with an oblique strain in May, then came back and immediately suffered an ankle sprain in August. Amaya is still dealing with the effects of those injuries, and his track record says he might never be able to carry even an 80-game burden at catcher. Fortunately, though, the Cubs got more than they could reasonably have hoped for from Kelly.

A stance and stride adjustment last spring helped Kelly get off to a blazing start at the plate. He struggled after Amaya went down, as his own workload suddenly spiked, but he remained a solid defensive backstop and manager of the game plan on the field. He wasn't a zero in the lineup, either; he just lost the thunder that he showed early in the campaign.

Maybe that will happen again this season. The Cubs will be similarly out of good complementary options if Amaya gets hurt again, so the risk that Kelly ends up overloaded remains real. So far, though, he's batting a stellar .333/.455/.467, in 55 plate appearances. Over the last two seasons, he was not only superficially usable at catcher, but genuinely above-average at the plate, according to Baseball Prospectus's DRC+. He ran a 106 in his 2024 season, divided between the Detroit Tigers and Texas. In 2025, that figure held firm, at 104. This season, that figure is up to 118. He's been a weapon in a lineup that has needed him, as some of the players on whom the team expected to rely more heavily have gotten off to slow starts.

Shortening his stride unlocked some power for Kelly, but the bulk of his changes came in 2024, before the Cubs got ahold of him. He got more aggressive in the strike zone, without chasing more, and he made more contact on those in-zone swings, to boot. He's held onto those improvements in his first year-plus with the Cubs, taking his offensive game to a new level. 

Kelly has always had a good eye at the plate. His 10.1% walk rate since the start of 2024 is the same as the one he posted from 2021-23. His strikeout rate has come down, though, from 21.4% to 18.1%, even as he's hit the ball harder. Now that we have bat-tracking data, it's fairly easy to see just how well Kelly's hand-eye coordination serves him. It's not just about making contact; he's squared the ball up on over 28% of his swings since the start of 2024. (The definition of squaring a ball up, for these purposes, is getting at least 80% of the possible exit velocity out of a given swing, based on the velocity of the incoming pitch and the speed of the swing.) This year, although the sample is far too small to assume it will hold, that number is over 38%. The league averages just under 26%. Kelly's bat speed is nothing special, but because he consistently hits it solidly, he doesn't need that lightning-fast rotation. As he's come to understand that about himself, he's gotten better at making good swing decisions and putting the ball in play.

He's also been a star behind the plate. Last season, he excelled at blocking pitches in the dirt and preventing runners from advancing on them. He doesn't have an especially strong arm, but as is true of his lack of plus bat speed, he makes up for deficient talent with a surfeit of skill; he's one of the most accurate throwers in the game. He's a slightly below-average pitch framer, but this season, he's found a way to overcome that—and then some.

Kelly has challenged nine called balls behind the plate this year, and gotten seven calls overturned. Statcast's model gives him 13 expected challenges, meaning there were some called balls (because he's not a great framer, especially along the lateral edges and at the top of the zone) he could plausibly have also challenged. However, the same model only suggests he should have won 7 of those challenges, so he's merely saved four expected confirmations (and four lost challenges for the Cubs) by being judicious. 

When hitters have challenged calls against Kelly, meanwhile, they've paid a dear price. Opposing batters are just 3-for-12 when challenging called strikes with Kelly catching this season. In one knot at the very bottom of the zone, he's induced five bad challenges by hitters. The Pirates wasted their challenges as a team on Sunday by challenging two near-identical pitches on which Kelly caught the ball somewhat snatchily, but which turned out to be legitimate strikes. Here's one of them, right away in the first inning:

And here's the other, in the seventh, just before the Cubs got some momentum and came back to win the game.

It might look inelegant, but this style of framing works, and this year, it's become even more valuable than it was in the past. When Kelly catches a ball like that and the umpire makes the right call, there's still one party left who might be fooled: the poor hitter. After what they felt was an especially good take, watching the ball almost into the mitt, many hitters feel overconfident about their own zone judgment, especially when a catcher moves their mitt in an obvious way. Coaxing batters into bad challenges that cost their team the right to appeal decisions later in games is one new way catchers can create value under the ABS system, and lo, Kelly is doing it.

He'll be most productive if the team continues to use Amaya as close to half the time as possible. Even if that does continue, he won't have an OPS near 1.000 all season. Kelly has made real and tangible improvements, though, and he's one of those players whose makeup and a key adjustment or two allows them to enjoy a later prime than others. You'll never hear him talked about as an All-Star, let alone an MVP candidate, because constraints on volume make him more effective. Like the 6th Man of the Year in the NBA or the Relief Pitcher Award coming to the BBWAA awards suite this season, though, an award for players who provide value by giving a team length, strength and depth while also playing at a near-elite level during their limited time on the field might ought to exist. If it did, Kelly would be a candidate for it. He's been that good since joining the Cubs, and he has a chance to be even better in 2026 than he was in 2025.

 

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