BCB After Dark: Should Carson Kelly start more?
Sara Sanchez is a baseball analyst who divides her time between her love of the Cubs and fantasy baseball. She’s powered by nitro cold brew, rosé, and the vibes in the left field bleachers at Wrigley Field.
Welcome to your late night weekend indie coffee shop pop up where we’re still flabbergasted by a game for the ages at Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon. We’re talking about all of it with every beverage you can imagine, from that new craft IPA to a fancy mocktail for anyone who gave up alcohol for Lent.
One of the most pleasant surprises in the Cubs lineup has certainly been backup catcher Carson Kelly who is slashing .419/.578/1.097 across 45 plate appearances so far this season. In that time he’s hit six home runs (two on Friday afternoon), which is tied for the team lead with Kyle Tucker (who’s had more than double the plate appearances at 105). For a brief moment this weekend, Kelly was actually the most valuable Cub so far this season by fWAR at 1.4 v. Tucker’s 1.3. You can see the top five Cubs hitters by fWAR.
Now, I think we’d all agree that Kelly’s 322 wRC+, which actually leads all MLB hitters who have at least 40 plate appearances by a solid margin (Aaron Judge is second at 250) is going to regress soon rather than later. But it’s hard to argue with how hot Kelly’s been at the plate. After some tunes we’ll talk about whether he should play more.
If you’ve been at Wrigley Field lately you know that one walkout song is not like the others, and since that song happens to be Carson Kelly’s it seemed like a fine musical interlude for tonight’s BCB After Dark:
First of all, any song that has the line “take me home” is a 10/10 baseball pun and honestly I wish there were more screamable, musical baseball puns in walkout music. As a girl who watched Kevin Youklis walk out to “You — You’ve got what I need” as Boston fans screamed “YOUK!” for every “You” for years, this is very much my jam.
It’s also a song that just channels the 80s. The combination of the beat, the vibes. Admit it, you knew they were wearing Jesse Chavez sunglasses at night in the music video before you saw it. Because of course they are.
There’s also the added bonus of hype man and Marquee Sports Network Cubs Live analyst, Cole Wright making “Money man” jokes every time Carson Kelly steps to the plate to these tunes. It’s an all-around walkout win.
Back here in Cubslandia, Carson Kelly is on one of the hottest streaks of his career, but it’s not the only time he’s put up a wOBA in the .500s as you can see from the below handy rolling graph of his career dating back to 2020:
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