Geraldo Carrillo – Moving on Up

This definitely has turned out to be a different summer which is also slipping away very quickly.

Starting on  Friday we will be wearing masks for indoor activities. My best friend since the sixties has just completed 20 radiation treatments for prostate cancer and we are under a heat wave with very high humidity.

Baseball has resumed at the MLB level, at least temporarily, and as fans we should be grateful for whatever season we can experience. I don’t get too concerned about a game-by-game situation unless it is the final game of the season – a championship game. What I do miss the most, and perhaps this is heresy, is minor league ball and following the kids through the Dodger farm system. With no minor league ball, it has become increasingly more difficult for me to contribute to LADT. As mentioned before , when the minor league season went belly up it pretty much took most of my baseball  oxygen with it.

Having said that, there is a bit one can do to provide a column once in a while, although out of the context of minor league games. Thinking back, guys like Caleb Ferguson, Zach McKinstry and Victor Gonzalez come to mind. That is, players who were far from high profile as they started their professional baseball careers. Players who one would not expect to have achieved what they have done with Ferguson a 38th round selection, McKinstry a 33rd round selection and Gonzalez a $100,000 international signing. I would like to add  Geraldo Carrillo to that group. I had hoped to do it within the context of a season and game situation. However, here goes.

Right-hander Gerardo Carrillo was signed by the Dodgers as an international free agent on July 5, 2016. The native of Guadalajara, Mexico received a signing bonus of $75,000. He has climbed into the 17th slot in the Dodgers 2020 Prospect Rankings, now ahead of the aforementioned Victor Gonzalez (21) and Zach McKinstry (20) as well as ahead of fellow prospects Edwin Uceta (25), Michael Grove(19), Brett de Geus (29) AND Andre Jackson (30).

He began his professional career in the Dominican Summer League during the 2017 season recording a 2.79 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP in 14 appearances, 10 of them starts. He struck out 32 over 48.1 innings while walking 14.

Carrillo started the 2018 season in Arizona in rookie ball after spending time in extended spring training. After only 4 appearances in rookie ball he was promoted to low A. He started 9 games with the Great Lakes Loons and posted an ERA of 1.65 in his 49 innings of work. He  gave up 35 hits, walked 15 and struck out 37. His best game was his second to last start as he went 7 shutout innings, giving up 6 hits, walking 1 and striking out 7.

In 2019, Carrillo pitched as a 20-year-old for the High-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. In 23 games (21 starts), he went 5-9 with a 5.44 ERA, 86 strikeouts and 51 walks, along with a 1.60 WHIP over 86 innings. He finished the season strongly however, with his longest and arguably his best outing of the year. He tossed seven solid innings, allowing two earned runs, with a walk and a season-high 11 strikeouts in a win August 24 at the Inland Empire 66ers.

In fact, over his final three starts of the 2019 season, Carrillo finished 3-0, struck out 25, walked four, while giving up three earned runs (1.62 ERA) over 16 ⅔ innings. The 25/5 strikeout to walk ratio was noticeable in those three games as control has been the main concern with Carrillo as a young, developing pitcher.

To dig  a bit deeper into his progress, in the second half of the 2019 season over 37.1 innings pitched, he posted a 3.86 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP along with 41 strikeouts and 13 walks. Again, drawing attention to the strikeout to walk ratio during the second half of the season elevated his prospect status that already was under the radar.

Carrillo was selected to play in the Arizona Fall League following his 2019 regular season. Against better competition he posted a 2.22 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP along with 25 strikeouts and 13 walks over 24.1 innings pitched. His 24.1 innings pitched were the most by  a member of the Glendale Desert Dogs team. The league average for pitchers was 23.2 year-of-age while Carrillo turned 21 at the beginning of fall league play. On October 25, 2019 he was named the AFL Pitcher of the Week.

So what was it that moved Carrillo up on the Dodgers prospect chart? It is what was noticeable when he was a Loon.  Perhaps what was most noticeable about Carrillo was his composure on the mound pitching to batters often a few years older than him. He did not seem to get rattled under pressure and pitched with a confidence that bellied his age and experience.  Veteran pitching coach Bobby Cuellar was impressed with Carrillo on the hill.

“Right now, his delivery is not as good as he wants it, but the tenacity he has, the feel for the game that he has and the stubbornness sometimes that he has that, ‘I’m going to throw this pitch and I know it’s going to work,’” Cuellar said. “Even to do that, you have to have a feel and a trust for your ability to do things. This young man has a lot of trust in himself and a lot of trust in his ability and has a knowledge that I probably can’t teach, that ‘I can throw a pitch and it will work.”

Carrillo became even more noticeable as he was listed at 5’10” while weighing only 154 pounds yet he consistently threw in the low 90’s and could touch as high as 97 mph. Again, pitching coach Bobby Cuellar was impressed but was unable to explain how Carrillo generates his velocity.

“If you’ve been around baseball long enough, you know that I don’t have that answer for you,” Cuellar said about how a smaller pitcher can generate that kind of velocity. “I’ve been around some guys that are not very big and throw pretty hard themselves. I was fortunate enough to be a pitching coach with Pedro Martinez [with the Expos] and he wasn’t a very big guy, either. I really can’t tell you — his arm works a certain way, his extension works a certain way and then the ball comes out of his hand. I’m sure that I can’t exactly tell you what he does, but it works.”

Not to wear Cuellar out but he was equally  impressed with Carrillo’s hand speed with the Loons after a very good outing by the then 19-year-old.

“The changeup was especially good for Carrillo” , Cuellar said. “It’s an arm speed thing, the coach said of the pitch’s effectiveness. “But here’s this little guy who hits up to 94 [mph] on you, and all of sudden it’s pretty close hand speed and toward the end of the night, the last two or three innings, the hand speed on the fastball and the changeup were really, really close together. He threw a lot more changeups toward the end and, in fact, the last guy he struck out was a changeup.”

“I guess once he got more comfortable the way he threw it, the better the arm speed was. It’s just a feel. He’ll change his delivery, go fast and go slow. It’s a feel he has right now.”

What are others saying about Geraldo Carrillo? As mentioned, he turned a corner during the second half of the 2019 season with the Quakes. Pitching coach Connor McGuiness explains.

”This is part of the development process.  He’s starting to put it all together.  Sometimes the development process can lead to immediate results, and other times, sacrifices have to be made on the results end in order to develop players to succeed at the big league level.  It’s been very fun for all of us, Gerardo included, to see that his hard work is paying off.”

Jake Reiner on Inside the Dodgers wrote last May.

“Having watched footage of Carrillo, I can tell you that this guy has a potentially devastating cutter. However, he needs to harness and control his other pitches, like his 98 mph two-seam fastball, to set up that swing-and-miss pitch. He also has a changeup and curveball in his repertoire.”

Baseball America writes that he has rapidly filled out, adding 25 pounds, and has become one of the hardest throwing pitchers  in the Dodgers organization.

What does Geraldo Carrillo say? Just a couple of notes from an interview with him by Gail Verderico of Prospects 1500 last May. In that interview he states that his two seam fastball is his best pitch and he is working on  all his pitches but mostly on his changeup. He tends to pattern himself after Max  Scherzer admiring Scherzer’s courage and bravery when he’s on the mound and the way he challenges the hitters. Carrillo doesn’t appear to be a nibbler around the plate.

Lastly Gail Verderico asked Carrillo what he enjoyed most about the experience in the Arizona Fall League. His response:

“The opportunity to meet and play with all those good players. But my favorite memory from the Fall League was when I threw 100 mph.”

During the shutdown, Carrillo is doing what he can to stay fit and motivated as his breakout year  is postponed for another season.