Digging into Carson Kelly's early-season offensive breakout with the Cubs

After a gaggle of catchers provided virtually no value for the Chicago Cubs a year ago, the pairing of Miguel Amaya and Carson Kelly has flipped the script in 2025. Amaya enters Sunday's finale against the Dodgers with an above-average .761 OPS while Kelly continues to massacre opposing pitching on what feels like a daily basis.

With two more homers on Saturday in the Cubs' 16-0 shutout of the reigning World Series champs, Kelly raised his slash line to a ridiculous .417/.571/1.042 - which works out to a 358 OPS+ in 35 plate appearances. That's probably the most crucial number to keep in mind here: 35. This is an incredibly small sample size and there's no question a dramatic shift that will level off his numbers is coming, probably sooner rather than later.

Still, how has Kelly been this good in the season's first two weeks? Well, he's zeroing in on the pitches he wants very well - which has led to a massive 28.6 percent walk rate in the process. When he gets his pitch, he's jumping all over it, posting a hard-hit rate that's nearly 30 percent above league average (again, definitely not sustainable).

The veteran backstop is pulling the ball in the air more than ever before, and barreling pitches at a clip roughly three times his previous career-high. Every single one of his four home runs has been dead-pull to left field and he's hit just two balls to the opposite field this year (one of which was just to first base side of second). You can expect a shift in how pitchers attack him given his pull-heavy tendencies.

He's feasted on fastballs in April (.909 xSLG) and he's really given the Cubs a true platoon behind the plate, where you don't feel like you're mailing it in with either option. Amaya hasn't been setting the world on fire like Kelly, but neither has been dead weight - a label fairly applied to more than a few Chicago backstops in recent years.

The Cubs came into last offseason needing to shake things up at the catcher position after Amaya's uneven production last year. Their answer came in the form of Kelly, who signed a two-year, $11.5 million deal with the club in mid-December. It's very early and the numbers are going to tail off, but it's safe to say everyone's happy with how things have worked out so far.