Detroit Tigers 2014 Player Grades: Ezequiel Carrera

We can discuss all the highlights of Ezequiel Carrera‘s season, but I think it would be better to condense it into a highlight reel.

Sadly for Carrera and the Detroit Tigers, his highlight reel moment came in his first game, which meant the rest of the season went downhill–like off a cliff. This means Carrera has earned a poor grade of D+ and necessitates a signature from his parents.

Carrera has bounced around a bit, spending time in the Mets and Mariners organizations before making it to the majors with the Indians and Phillies. The Tigers inked him to a minor league deal during the last off-season. He turned heads while in Toledo, playing decent enough defense and hitting .307 with six homers, 41 RBIs, and a .809 OBP.

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The Tigers brought him up on August 1 and that above play was huge, coming with the bases loaded for the Yankees. Carrera played mostly in center field to spell Austin Jackson, but then took over the position semi-regularly when Jackson was shipped out at the trading deadline. While Carrera wasn’t the worst outfielder, he was far from good–or even average. He committed only one error on the season, but misjudged countless balls that could have been outs but bounced in for hits.

Detroit was not expecting too much out of the glove, but from the numbers in Toledo were hopeful for that long sought-after bench bat. They received yet another average bench player as Carrera hit just .261 with five extra base hits (no homers), a pair of RBIs and a lackluster .649 OPS.

At this point it is unclear whether Carrera will be in the team’s plans for 2015 either in Detroit or Toledo.