Outlook Carson Kelly
Ice-Cold Catcher Looks to Snap Deep Slump as Cubs Face Favorable Weekend Matchups
Kelly continues to serve as the Cubs' primary starting catcher, but his bat has completely cooled off for the fourth-place club, who are currently riding a three-game losing streak. Over the last seven days, Kelly has gone completely hitless in 11 at-bats, dropping his 14-day average to a modest .222. Despite this sudden dry spell, his active role remains stable with no immediate threat to his playing time.
While this recent slump is highly frustrating, his overall season line of .283 with a .362 on-base percentage is still a massive improvement over his career .238 baseline. Our models project Kelly to settle around a .235 average with 11 home runs by season's end, implying that his early-season surge was a bit of an outlier and that his current downward trend is a regression to the mean.
For the remainder of the week, Kelly has four games on tap, starting with a tough matchup against J.T. Ginn of the Athletics, before welcoming a Giants staff featuring high-ERA starters like Robbie Ray (4.45 ERA) and Trevor McDonald (4.50 ERA). While the weekend matchups look highly exploitable on paper, Kelly's extreme slump makes him too risky to trust in active lineups. The verdict is to Sit him until his bat shows signs of life.
Updated 3 days ago
