Luis Carpio is a middle infielder that Baseball America has graded at 50 with extreme risk (which is the bulk of the Mets farm system according to BA before the 2016 season). Coming into 2018 the story for Carpio was still his recovery from 2016. But let’s start from the beginning.
The Caracas born shortstop (and now mostly second basemen) played his first year of professional ball with the Mets in 2014 at the age of 16 in the DOSL .234/.347/.301. Even through his injuries, his plate discipline/approach have been listed as one of his most positive attributes. This earned Carpio a spot in Kingsport in 2015 (jumping the Gulf Coast League). At the age of 17 he was 3.6 years younger than the average APPY player that year and hit an awesome .304/.372/.359.
The next spring he tore is right labrum and essentially missed the entire 2016 season (he had a few DH appearances) since then the question has been how will he return? In Columbia in 2017 he hit .232/.308/.302. Still showing considerably more walks than hits but he was definitely still struggling in recovery. Last year in Columbia (and one game in Binghamton) he put up a different looking slash line at .219/.290/.364, losing some of his On Base potential, but grabbing quite a bit of powering raising his OPS by 44 points. In 2017 he hit 18 doubles and 3 homers but last year he hit 21 doubles and 12 homers.
Power has never been his Carpio’s calling card. Next year will be the third year removed from his major injury. At 21 he would still be below the average age at Columbia so starting the season in Columbia wouldn’t be out of the norm but depending on what the Mets see this spring (or this winter if he moves from the reserve squad to the active squad for Leones) maybe he starts the season in St. Lucie.
