Biography
Corbin Franklin Carroll (born August 21, 2000) is an American professional baseball outfielder for the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Diamondbacks selected Carroll 16th overall in the first round of the 2019 MLB draft. He made his MLB debut in 2022. In 2023, Carroll was an MLB All-Star and was named the National League Rookie of the Year en route to winning Arizona's first National League pennant since 2001.
Early life
Corbin Franklin Carroll was born on August 21, 2000, in Seattle, Washington, to Brant and Pey-Lin Carroll. He is biracial; his father is Irish-American, and his mother was born in Taiwan and moved to Louisiana with her parents at the age of four. Carroll has a younger sister who went to Holy Names Academy and became a soccer player. The family grew up in an Asian-American neighborhood in Seattle. Carroll participated in cross-country sports to improve his speed.
Amateur career
Carroll played on the USA 18U National Team that won Gold in the 2018 COPABE Pan-American Championships. He attended Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington. As a senior in 2019, he hit .540 with nine home runs and a 1.859 OPS. He committed to play college baseball at UCLA.
Professional career
Draft and minor leagues
The Arizona Diamondbacks selected Carroll with the 16th overall pick in the first round of the 2019 Major League Baseball draft. He signed for $3.7 million and was assigned to the Arizona League Diamondbacks to make his professional debut. After batting .291 with two home runs, 14 RBIs, and 16 stolen bases over 31 games, he was promoted to the Hillsboro Hops on August 8. Over 11 games with Hillsboro, he batted .326 with six RBIs. Between the two teams, he batted .299/.409/.487 in 154 at bats, with 18 stolen bases in 19 attempts.
Carroll did not play a minor league game in 2020 due to the cancellation of the minor league season caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He returned to Hillsboro to begin the 2021 season. However, in early May, Carroll injured his shoulder while hitting a home run and later underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. At the time, he was 10-for-23 (.435) for the season.
Carroll opened the 2022 season with the Amarillo Sod Poodles. In early July, he was promoted to the Reno Aces. With three minor league teams in 2022 he batted .307/.425/.611 in 362 at bats with 24 home runs and 31 steals in 36 attempts.
Arizona Diamondbacks (2022–present)
2022
The Diamondbacks promoted Carroll to the major leagues on August 29, 2022. He made his debut later that day, against the Philadelphia Phillies. He went 1–for-5 with a two-RBI double. On September 7, Carroll hit his first career home run, a solo shot off of San Diego Padres starter Yu Darvish. In 2022 with Arizona, he batted .260/.330/.500 in 104 at bats, playing primarily left field, and was the seventh-youngest ballplayer in the National League. He had the fastest sprint speed of any major league player, at 30.7 feet/second.
2023
On March 11, 2023, Carroll signed a contract extension worth $111 million over eight years with the Diamondbacks. Carroll immediately made an impact for the Diamondbacks to begin the 2023 season, hitting .309 with a .910 OPS and 10 stolen bases in the month of April. On June 1 against the Colorado Rockies, Carroll hit a two-out, two-run single in the ninth inning, marking the first walk-off hit of his career. Carroll hit his first career grand slam on June 9 against the Detroit Tigers, and later won the National League Rookie of the Month for June, hitting .291 with eight homers, 22 RBIs, and eight steals. On June 29, it was announced Carroll would be a starting outfielder in the 2023 All-Star Game in his hometown of Seattle, marking his first career All-Star appearance.
In his first full season in the majors, Carroll slashed .285/.362/.506 with 30 doubles, 10 triples, 25 homers, 76 RBI, 57 walks, and 54 stolen bases in 155 games. He became the first rookie in major league history to join the 20–50 club, reaching 20+ home runs and 50+ stolen bases in the same season. He also became the first player ever to have 10+ triples, 25+ doubles, 25+ home runs, and 50+ stolen bases in a single season. Carroll won the Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award by a unanimous vote, becoming the first Diamondbacks player to win the award (the Diamondbacks were the only remaining franchise not to have a player win it at the time), and the first Asian-American to win it. He was also named to the All-MLB First Team as an outfielder and finished fifth in NL MVP voting.
Carroll helped the Diamondbacks advance to the 2023 postseason, where they faced the Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card Series. Down 3–0 early in game 1, Carroll hit a 444-foot, two-run home run to spark six unanswered Diamondback runs as they won 6–3. Carroll and the Diamondbacks closed out the Brewers in game 2 and swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series, with Carroll boasting a slash line of .412/.565/.824 across the five games. In the NLCS against the Philadelphia Phillies, Carroll struggled with a .222 average and a .489 OPS, but he turned it around in game 7, going 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two stolen bases, becoming the second-youngest player in MLB history (behind Ty Cobb in the 1908 World Series) to achieve at least three hits and two steals in a playoff game. Carroll reached the 2023 World Series in his first full season with the Diamondbacks, where they lost in five games to the Texas Rangers, with Carroll driving in four runs in the series.
2024
In the first half of the 2024 season, Carroll's performance declined significantly. Prior to the All-Star Game, Carroll had a dismal batting average of .212 with only five home runs, 32 RBIs, and 18 stolen bases through 94 games. This was a sharp dropoff compared to the first half of his rookie season, in which Carroll batted .289 with 18 home runs, 48 RBIs, and 26 stolen bases before the All-Star Game. Carroll achieved his first-half rookie numbers in 86 games, eight games fewer than in 2024, further highlighting his sophomore slump.
In the second half of the 2024 season, Carroll turned his power numbers around by focusing on making better contact and driving the ball in the air. Following a .334 slugging percentage and five home runs at the All-Star break, Carroll slugged .660 with 14 homers in the first 40 games following the All-Star break, including a surge in power against high-velocity fastballs. On July 29 against the Washington Nationals, Carroll hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run to cap off a five-run ninth-inning rally as the Diamondbacks won 9–8. The home run marked Carroll's first career walk-off home run.
On August 16, Carroll hit a two-out, two-run home run off closer Pete Fairbanks of the Tampa Bay Rays in the ninth to tie the game, but the Diamondbacks ultimately lost in extra innings. On August 28, he hit two home runs against the New York Mets, including a two-out go-ahead grand slam in the eighth inning against closer Edwin Diaz to lead the Diamondbacks to an 8–5 victory. Carroll was later named the NL Player of the Month for August, slashing .280/.342/.700 with 11 homers, 24 RBI, and 30 runs scored in the month. In his second full season in the majors, Carroll slashed .231/.424/.740 with 22 doubles, 14 triples, 22 homers, 74 RBI, 73 walks, and 35 stolen bases in 158 games.