Turlock High alumnus Cole Carrigg wasn’t quite a household name for baseball fans across the country prior to last week’s Major League Baseball Draft Combine at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. Flash forward to today, there isn’t a baseball scout or front office executive that can stop talking about him.
On Wednesday, the 21-year-old who played nearly every position during in his junior year at San Diego State this past season, went viral on social media after registering three throws of over 100 miles per hour live on MLB Network.
Carrigg, who graduated from Turlock High in 2020, first showed off his rocket of a right arm with a 100 mph throw from third base. After finishing infield drills, he ran out to right fields where he fired a missile to home plate at 101 mph. While most position players would be tired after a throw that fast and hard, he followed it up by firing another throw to the plate at 102 mph.
Statcast is a state-of-the-art, high-speed, high-accuracy, automated tool developed to analyze player movements and athletic abilities in Major League Baseball. Since it was first introduced to Major League Baseball and installed in all stadiums in 2015, there has never been an infield assist at the major league tracked at 100 mph or more. As for Carrigg’s hardest throw at 102 mph, only 22 throws been registered at 102 mph or faster. In fact, 20 MLB teams haven’t registered a 102 mph throw from the outfield in their history since 2015.
“I knew I had a little bit in the tank, but I did not know I had that much. So that was pretty cool to see,” Carrigg told Jesse Borek of MLB.com.
The video of his 102 mph throw was posted on official MLB Draft and MLB Pipeline social media accounts and has achieved over 281,100 views. His name was even trending in the top 15 of all tweets in the United States on Wednesday.
The 6-3, 200-pound super utilityman also took reps at catcher, his primary position, where he registered a throwdown to second base at 1.82 seconds. With the bat in his hands, he hit the fifth longest ball of Wednesday’s workout session, a 406-foot blast to left field.
“He’s really athletic,” said Jim Callis, senior writer for MLB Pipeline, MLB.com’s official prospect blog. “He’s played shortstop, he can play outfield, he can play catcher, he can run, he can throw… He’s showing you a little bit of everything…”
The Turlocker was one of 323 college and high school ballplayers to participate in this year’s Combine, the third to ever be held. The event offers players the opportunity to take part in a number of events, including medical assessments, performance testing, on-field workouts, games and in-person team meetings. Above all, players invited to the Combine have a goal of boosting their draft stock. In May, Carrigg was listed as MLB Pipeline’s 45th ranked prospect in next month’s MLB Draft, projecting him to be a second-round pick. After his stellar week in Arizona, there have been rumblings of teams interested in selecting him in the first round.
“I think his stock went through the roof,” said MLB Network analyst and former major league second baseman Harold Reynolds.
This season, Carrigg hit .303 with 47 hits in 155 at-bats for the Aztecs, driving in 27 runs and swiping 17 bags.
The 2023 Major League Baseball Draft will take place from July 9 to 11 in Seattle as part of All-Star week festivities.
