This is Carson Kelly's Diamondbacks 2023 Player Review. This article is part of a series of player reviews for the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks. It was a surprising and marvelous year for the team as they won 84 games to make the postseason. They advanced all the way to Game Five of the World Series before bowing out to the Texas Rangers. There are 54 players in all that had at least one at-bat or pitched at least one inning for the team this past season. They are being presented in reverse order of their aWAR (average WAR-Wins Above Replacement) produced, which is the average of Baseball Reference and Fangraphs WAR. These are their season stories.
Carson Kelly came to the Diamondbacks in the Paul Goldschmidt trade back in 2018. The then-24-year-old catcher was set up to be the franchise's new franchise catcher. He was their answer to solidify a position that had been in flux since Miguel Montero was traded in the early 2010s. That worked out quite well in 2019, but then injuries started to rear their head over the next four seasons. The latest in 2023 when an errant pitch broke Kelly's forearm in Spring Training. This caused a multitude of cascading decisions and effects on the D-backs roster and catching situation. Star prospect Gabriel Moreno was supposed to start the season as the backup before slowly taking the full reigns. Instead, with Kelly hurt, Moreno started the season full-bore.
Then, Jose Herrera showed enough promise to grab hold of the backup job until Kelly came back. Kelly did come back on June 12th, but he never really found his footing working in a role he was unfamiliar with. He had never been a backup catcher long-term which is what the D-backs were asking of him. Kelly started off slow, hitting just .163 with a .452 OPS over his first 13 games. However, soon after he returned, Moreno went on the Injured List and Kelly became the starting backstop.
Carson Kelly did quite well during that time. Over 19 games, from July 15th to his final game on August 12th, Kelly hit .293/.370/.342/.711 with 12 hits and a 5/9 walk-strikeout ratio. It seemed like the Kelly of old was back. However, when Moreno was ready to return on August 13th, Carson Kelly was designated for assignment. The D-backs made the difficult decision to go with Jose Herrera as the backup, a move that would later backfire due to Herrera's extended slump.
2024 Status and Outlook:
Carson Kelly ended up signing with the Detroit Tigers to finish out his 2023 season. After the season, Kelly agreed to stay with the Tigers for his final season of arbitration before reaching true free agency again after the 2024 season. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks will have Moreno as their starting catcher and are searching for a suitable backup catcher. For more information or to learn more about Carson Kelly's extended time in the D-backs uniform, check out the article below.
More must-reads: