There was a time when Carlson was one of the top prospects in baseball. There was not a scenario where anyone envisioned Carlson would be a free agent at age 26 after being dumped by his second organization, but that is where Carlson is at press time as he was non-tendered by Tampa Bay at the deadline. The Rays acquired Carlson at the last second of the deadline and hoped they had some more magic dust in the cupboard that was applied to Randy Arozarena and Tommy Pham when those two outfielders were acquired from St. Louis, but the cannister must have had an expiration date as Carlson did very little for the Rays. He hit all 3 of his homer for them and hit 20 points better after the trade, but hit actual and expected batting average on non-offspeed pitches was below .200 and his swing and miss rate was at least 30% on all pitch types. The old adage says once you display a skill, you own it applies here because Carlson is nearly 1750 plate appearances into a major league career and outside of a hot second half of 2021 where he hit 11 homers with a .277/.343/.505 slash line, he has done very little over the remaining 1500 plate appearances on his resume. Read Past Outlooks