Bleed Cubbie Blue After Dark: Should Carson Kelly start more?

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 as of Saturday below:

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.

I feel a hunger, it’s a hunger
That tries to keep a man awake at night
Are you the answer? I shouldn’t wonder
When I can feel you whet my appetite
With all the power you’re releasing
It isn’t safe to walk the city streets alone
Anticipation is running through me
Let’s find the keys and turn this engine on

I can feel you breathe
I can feel your heart beat faster (Faster)

Take me home tonight
I don’t want to let you go ‘til you see the light
Take me home tonight
Listen, honey, just like Ronnie sang
Be my little baby, oh, ho, oh

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:

FanGraphs

A few notes, while there have been two other similar spikes in Kelly’s career, none has been quite so high as the spike we’ve seen to start 2025. Additionally, that spike is still rising, so we are in the midst of one of the hottest streaks of Kelly’s career.

However, it’s also worth noting that in the last 4 full seasons plus the 60-game season in 2020, Kelly’s played 395 games total. Now, catchers frequently play less than other positions due to the toll catching places on players. However, 395 games over 4+ years is decidedly part-time territory. That actually facilitates some of the huge spikes you see in a rolling wOBA like Kelly’s, because the 15-game small sample sizes can also be the most favorable matchups. To demonstrate this, I looked at the same chart for Salvador Perez — the player who has played the most games as a catcher during that period, while also arguably being the best hitting catcher in the sport during that time:

FanGraphs

I bring this up mainly to demonstrate that .550+ wOBA spikes are not standard operating procedure for everyday players. In fact, the only time Perez has matched what Kelly’s done a few times is during the pandemic-shortened season. Which begs the question: could Kelly even sustain this pace with more playing time?

A glance at his splits suggests the answer is no. Kelly is hitting .480/.618/1.240 in 34 plate appearances against righties and .167/.455/.500 in 11 plate appearances against lefties. Honestly, that screams small sample sizes, so I looked at multiple years worth of splits too and found that since 2023 Kelly’s actually had a pretty noticeable opposite split, he’s better against lefties. He’s slashed .262/.388/.429 with a wRC+ of 133 in 103 plate appearances against southpaws since 2023. He’s slashed .236/.310/.390 with a wRC+ of 99 in 406 plate appearances against righties in the last two-plus seasons.

So I ask you, BCB After Dark, should Carson Kelly play more? Even if it’s just a bump while he’s red hot? Or is part of the secret sauce however the Cubs are deploying him to start 2025?