The Angels have agreed to a minor league deal with first baseman Chris Carter, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets. He’ll rake in $1.75MM if he makes the Angels’ roster and could earn up to $600K in incentives, Jon Heyman of FanRag reports.
The 31-year-old Carter could provide the Angels a replacement for fellow first baseman C.J. Cron, whom they traded to the Rays on Saturday. But Carter will have to spend the next several weeks rebuilding his stock in camp after he fared horribly in the majors with the Yankees last season. The powerful Carter hit just .201/.284/.370 with eight home runs and a .168 ISO over 208 appearances with New York before the club jettisoned him. Carter then caught on with Oakland on a minor league pact, but he didn’t return to the majors with the A’s. He instead took 154 PAs at the Triple-A level and batted .252/.357/.511.
Of course, the righty-hitting Carter isn’t far removed from leading the National League in home runs (41) as a Brewer in 2016, so he could emerge as a quality buy-low pickup for the Angels. While Carter has always been prone to strikeouts (he owns a career 33.3 percent K rate) and low batting averages, his .217/.312/.456 line across 2,853 big league PAs has still been 9 percent better than average, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric (Cron has been 7 percent above in 1,475 PAs). Carter’s power (.239 ISO, four seasons with at least 24 HRs) and patience (11.5 percent walk rate) are to thank for that.
In the event Carter does find his way to Anaheim, he’ll join a team whose first base/designated hitter options were among the majors’ worst last year. Albert Pujols and Luis Valbuena are the Halos’ most prominent holdovers at those positions from 2017, and they’ve since added DH candidate/potential ace Shohei Ohtani.
Uhhh no thanks
All he’s doing is providing the depth in the minors they lost by losing Cron. Why is that a bad thing?
because it’s Chris Carter.
And you’re some jerk on the Internet, DiMaggio.
lol. Did you just relate Carter to DiMaggio?
Yeah… dom damaggio. Booyah!
I understand where you are coming from based on last years numbers but he is a year removed from a 41 hr season. I don’t think he helps your Angels, as Luis Valnueba, Pujols and Ohtani will compete for at bats, but he would have helped the Cubs. Tony Rizzo is an incredibly overrated first baseman and a platoon with Carter might have worked well. Carter hits lefties better than Rizzo for one. He could DH in AL parks and would have provided insurance in the likely event of a Rizzo injury and/or continued regression. The Cubs would have been well served by Chris Carter in 2018.
I got a chance to see Carter practice over the off season on more than one occasion. He spent a lot of time at the local high school baseball field. He would hit off of a tee for literally hours on in, and do various base running drills. I’m not sure who the guy was who was throwing to him when he wasn’t hitting off of a tee, didn’t recognize him. All I can say is that this guy has put in a lot of work this off season, I seen it with my own eyes, Angels are getting him at a bargain price for how he will end up performing this year. Hard work pays off and he put in hard work.
Who is Tony Rizzo?
Tony…..commonly short for Anthony. Do you live under a rock?
Also Rizzo chose the name Tony for the players weekend names.
Tony Rizzo…open ya ears, JACKASS!! *Best Jerky Boys Voice*
Move of the year
Haha
I missed the funny bit.
I predict a huge season from Carter. Lot of production from 1B/DH from him and Pujols.
He is insurance in case of a injury to Pujols.
I liked him in NY. A lot of power but not a lot of discipline at the plate.
-0.7 WAR last year.
Pujols provided -1.8bWAR/-2.0fWAR last sesason. Anyone is an improvement over Pujols at this point unless he turns back the clock.
So Chris Carter and player to be named later is better than CJ crohn?
Yes. In literally every way.
I predict 300 AB, 50 hits, 49 Hrs, 200 Ks.
I will never understand the downvotes on this site.
Downvotes are totally reasonable for this comment, who else thinks Carter will touch 300 AB?
more importantly, hitting 49 HRs in 300 ABs is an insane projection for any player.
It’s a joke based on an exaggeration of Carter’s batting profile. Come on.
‘Twas a clear joke guys
The .166AVG and 49 homers part was the fun thing. His ISO would be insane.
People like you are why there’s instructions on shampoo.
Yes, but it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t even clever. It was just obvious and stupid.
i use the app and never see up or down votes
Always found it strange they don’t incorporate that system in the app. I can see an argument to do away with it, but should probably be a consistent format on both ends. It does seem to just lead to petty, stupid arguments more than anything, but it’s sometimes interesting to use it as a barometer for general fan reactions to certain notions.
It’s only on their web page (whether via PC or mobile)
Why take it away? If you’re that sensitive to down-votes and up-votes use the app. And I’ve called out many hit and run down-voters, who down-vote (without argument) many times.
I tend to find the highest quality comments, the most up-voted — with couple discrepancies here and there
I actually wish they gave you an option to sort by highest voted, lowest voted, much like oldest newest!
Also notifications would help immensely
Your prediction suggests Carter batting at a .300 avg and hitting one home run every 6th AB. Try again.
Uhhh that would be a .167 average Genius
Geez. You guys get bent out of shape because my joke says he’ll get 300 ABs, but nobody bats an eye that I said that he’d only have one hit that wasn’t a dinger?
Was this the deal from trading C.J Cron???
Cron was out of Options so couldn’t be sent down. The Angels said he was a victim of the roster because of his lack of versatility though.
Makes me think Carter is just an insurance policy in case one of the guys slated for the timeshare at 1B/DH gets injured in ST, a position Cron could not longer hold because he needed a 25man spot
So the answer he was looking for was no. Carter was a free agent that was signed on a minor league deal.
The PTBNL from the rays is supposed to be a minor league player btw
Tbh, I don’t know exactly what he was trying to say or expecting in an answer. The article clearly states “signed” so obviously this isn’t a piece given to them from TB for Cron…
I don’t just assume he is dumb though either, so I took his post to mean (with a possible minor translation error or typo) he was asking if this was the Angels plan all along regarding 1B, and answered that accordingly.
I was only confused because I thought I saw Chris Carter was on the Oakland A’s being signed this offseason.
But that was after I posted what I said. I answered my own question after the fact.
…sure hope this doesn’t mean short, wrong handed, light hitting Second-baseman Sherman Johnson is going to lose his 1B job for SLC. Sherm is such a natural fit!
This is one of the dumbest moves. I don’t get this one.
It’s depth in the minors they don’t have from Cron. How is that (1) a bad move and (2) so hard to understand?
All they did was sign a veteran to a minor contract. You consider that a “dumbest move”. It is a nothing move, just adds a body on the farm.
It’s a minor league deal. relax
Minor league deal, stupid.
Yankees Designated him for assignment twice in 2 weeks— first time to Triple-A. He never reported to AAA because of a Tyler Austin injury. He proceeded to go 1-for-12 and was DFA’d again only this time it wasn’t to AAA.
It was his release.
He hit .201/.284/.370 (73 wRC+) with eight homers for NYY.
hated him with the Astros. hang a fastball over the plate like in t-ball and he crushed it. everything else is swing and misses.
Most Yankees’ fans hated his time in pinstripes. His hustle beating out a grounders running to 1st, left a lot to be desired, and Strikeouts were his trademark.
But he won a couple games for us, at least one pinch hit three-run home run which broke a 5-5 tie in the 8th (NYY was down 5-0 earlier) April 22.
This game was Carter’s signature moment in pinstripes, pherhaps his only one— it was all down-hill from there.
Ideally, you’d love to see Carter hit many pitch hit HR.
espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=370422123
Insurance for Pujols getting hurt. And occasional call ups for pinch hits.
I like his upside guy has a ton of power better then c.j. Maybe with the angels he will get his swing back. And be productive.
Steal of the offseason last year at $5M, member?
$3.5 million to be exact.
Looked at the comment section and someone actually did say that
@BSPORT
Steal of the year. Hit 41 homers last year, 30 yrs old and knows he has to produce or off to Japan and out of MLB. One year at $3 million and if he plays as he needs to for baseball life Cashman will have a slugger before trade deadline than he could get a small haul for. If he doesn’t produce he cost them a tenth of Arod who couldn’t hit for a couple of years and this guy is 10 years younger. Totally worth the risk of $3 million for what he could payoff.
Doesn’t really fit in with the whole versatility plan so i doubt he makes the roster. Meaningless move, relax angels fans
win/win for AL west. If Carter is playing then there must be a better player out of the lineup. So win for easier lineup and win for Carter being an easy out.
“If Carter is playing then there must be a better player out of the lineup.”
He’d replace Pujols if anybody who sadly is now equally bad. Sucks that his slash line is going to get worse and worse for the sure first ballot HOFer.
I love detailed stats but Pujols doesn’t strike out. his outs tend to be more productive. The only argument against it is the double play issue but that’s because he doesn’t strike out. WAR aside, when setting these two, pujols feels like the better player. carter is groaningly bad.
Pujols had over 100 rbis last year. Chris Carter had 26. Carter had 76 strikeouts to Pujols 93 and Pujols had over 400 more plate appearances. Pujols is no where near as bad as Carter.
I was so glad when the Yankees eventually got rid of the legendary Khris Karter. Time for that yankeeography yes Network !
true story: his real first name is Vernon
Thought Duda would have been better.
I wish there were more 3 true outcome guys like Carter in the league. For his career, roughly 55% of his at-bats end in a walk, strikeout, or homerun…that’s consistency!
Wow…..do the Angels front office watch any baseball before making choices on players they think can help.
Disaster in the field, and at the plate.
This is the best they could come up with for a backup at 1st?
Remaining 1B on the market:
Morrison, Napoli, Duda, Lind, Reynolds, Valencia, Moore, and Weeks.
Morrison and Napoli get MLB deals
Duda and Lind bubble backups (would be better but doubt either takes a minors deal- Duda hit 30 last year, Lind productive backup and Nats already said they would happy to have him back, so no reason to go to Anaheim for even less certainty of playing time)
Reynolds probably about equivalent, but already has Rockies courting for MLB deal, so why take MiLB when you can get one in the majors.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Moore and Weeks don’t see MLB time this year
Valencia’s an interesting case, but while versatile doesn’t really fit the places the Angels need to be versatile in.
Carter’s cost effective and if Pujols and Valbuena both go down I think the Angels will have much bigger problems to worry about than Carter at first based on prior injury history
Everyone here is so negative and judgemental. I bet if he has 300 at bats and no hits, He’s going to have a better year and make more money than everybody on here combined. Lighten up. Its baseball.
He’s minor league depth and if he makes the roster he only earns $1..7 M, That’s a cheap backup option.
Carter adds a needed aspect to The Angels: Depth. Without players like him injuries can easily overtake the best team. If he was able to fix his BA to the tune of .252 and still hit 35 HR-what’s so wrong with that? That could be 70RBI and 50 runs to go with it. Sounds pretty inviting to try out. Pujols might have lost weight to shape up but so did Panda. What does Albert have left in the can? Is he going to make it a full season? Highly unlikely, but stranger things is on Netflix.
This is a big day for me. i completely agree with a Yankee fan. 🙂
Let’s see. A player hits 23 HR and leads the team in RBI with a 102 and he is described as one the worst last year. Interesting!
Yeah, people look at the obvious stats for these things, and Pujols really has shown that we need some sort of stat that values clutch hitting. Pujols was bad until the Angels needed a run, and then he was scary. That’s kinda been his thing the last 2 years. We need a stat to value that that factors into statsmakers’ evaluations on players.
As a Brewer fan I wasn’t disappointed when they didn’t try to resign him. Sure he hit a homer in every 4 days but his strikeouts seemed to be at opportune moments and averaged more than 1 per game. At least he never doped though.
Needs: Lefty batter for extreme righty dominant lineup. Signs: two aging RIGHTY backups. Where is the lefty love… Kole can’t be the only one.