Dylan Carlson

There was a time when Carlson was one of the top prospects in baseball. There likely wasn't a scenario where managers envisioned Carlson signing a one-year deal at age 26 after being dumped by his second organization, but Baltimore swooped in and gave him a six-figure guarantee after he was non-tendered by Tampa Bay at the deadline. The Rays acquired Carlson at the last second of the deadline and hoped there was some more magic dust in the cupboard that had been applied to Randy Arozarena and Tommy Pham when those two outfielders were acquired from St. Louis, but the canister must have had an expiration date, as Carlson did very little for the Rays. He hit all three of his homers for them and hit 20 points better after the trade, but his actual and expected batting average on non-off-speed pitches was below .200 and his swing-and-miss rate was at least 30 percent on all pitch types. The old adage that says, once you display a skill, you own it, applies here, because Carlson has nearly 1,750 plate appearances in his major league career, and outside of a hot second half of 2021 in which he hit 11 homers with a .277/.343/.505 slash line, he has done very little over the remaining 1,500 plate appearances on his resume. Read Past Outlooks