{"id":534820,"date":"2026-01-23T18:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534820\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:28:18","slug":"2026-chicago-cubs-player-profiles-carson-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534820\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Chicago Cubs player profiles: Carson Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

31-year-old Carson Franklin Kelly had a real nice year in 2025, registering 3.6 bWAR and a slash line of .249\/.333\/.428 with 17 home runs and 50 RBI in 421 plate appearances. Not too shabby. Yeah, he wasn\u2019t Cal Raleigh, but then, neither is anybody else.<\/p>\n

That was easily his best year in MLB, surpassing the 2.1 bWAR he turned in for the 2021 season and in fact nearly doubling his lifetime total. He also hit for the cycle in March.<\/p>\n

So we probably can\u2019t count on that kind of production, even in a contract year. Miguel Amaya is capable of turning in better numbers, as said in his profile<\/a>, Amaya will likely be the nominal starting catcher by year\u2019s end. If Kelly turns in a decent campaign, though, it\u2019s entirely possible that the Cubs keep him around to be Amaya\u2019s backup in 2027, assuming that Moises Ballesteros doesn\u2019t suddenly attain competence behind the plate.<\/p>\n

Northside Baseball\u2019s Randy Holt had a few choice words about that<\/a> in a recent article, zeroing in on what Kelly changed to attain the better numbers, and by his logic, it should be a repeatable process. \u201c\u2026 it doesn\u2019t seem at all unrealistic for him to do it again in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

His 777 putouts (fifth in the NL), .998 Fielding Percentage, and 34.3 CS percentage (second in the NL) don\u2019t hurt, either.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s important, given Amaya\u2019s propensity for the freak injury. Kelly does have a $7.5 million mutual option for 2027, and odds are that the Cubs won\u2019t be paying the $1.5 million buyout.<\/p>\n

BBRef puts forth Barry Foote and George Mitterwald as comparative bats. Different times, though. Both were substandard in their day, though both had a good year or two, as Kelly has. It could be worse.<\/p>\n

Something like 10 home runs, 35 RBI, and a .240 BA seem reasonable, with good defensive numbers and a slightly diminished workload. He should have around 40 percent of the playing time in 2026, with Amaya getting the lion\u2019s share, especially later in the season.<\/p>\n

If both play to their 2025 paces, and Amaya stays on the field, the Cubs are in good shape, catching-wise.<\/p>\n

This series will continue on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"31-year-old Carson Franklin Kelly had a real nice year in 2025, registering 3.6 bWAR and a slash line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,70392,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-534820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-player-profiles","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115945833269857315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}