Former Cardinals top prospect's fall from grace continues after being non-tendered

Remember when John Mozeliak said Dylan Carlson would have to be pried from his "cold dead hands"? Well, the Tampa Bay Rays just let him go for free, non-tendering him before tonight's deadline.

Far has the fall from grace been for the St. Louis Cardinals' former top prospect. After being one of the top prospects in all of baseball, Carlson finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting back in 2021 and was given the keys to the Cardinals center field job at the 2022 trade deadline.

In what will always be a really unfortunate situation for him, Carlson unfairly had his name at the center of Juan Soto trade rumors at the 2022 deadline, and Mozeliak did not do enough to come out and refute Carlson being the reason they did not acquire Soto. After that saga, Carlson experienced a number of injuries and was really disappointing on the field, and after a terrible two years from July 2022 to July 2024, Carlson was sent to the Rays in the final minutes of the 2024 trade deadline for reliever Shawn Armstrong.

While Carlson had brief success with the Rays upon his arrival, he had a brutal stint with the club overall, posting a .219/.299/.316 slash line and a -0.3 bWAR in 37 games. Sadly, that was somehow better than his numbers with the Cardinals in 2024, and his season numbers ended with a -1.2 bWAR while hitting .209/.287/.277.

Carlson, when he's been at his best, has been an average center fielder or well-above-average corner outfielder defensively who can mash left-handed pitching. His greatest weakness as a player at the Major League level has been hitting right-handed pitching, and he has to figure out how to turn that around if he is going to find any success elsewhere.

It's wild how much Carlson has fallen off after destroying minor-league pitching and having a really good start to his MLB career. Carlson is another example of how broken the Cardinals' player development system has been in recent years, and one can hope that he will find a way to overcome all of that like other former Cardinals have in their new destinations.

It's not a great look for Carlson that the Rays decided to cut ties with him, but he was going to be fairly expensive in arbitration for the kind of production he has been giving teams as of late. Carlson made $2.35 million in arbitration in 2024, and that number would likely be even higher for the Rays in 2025. The fact the Rays did not want to pay Carlson that should say a lot about how they view his future at this point.

Carlson will now look to latch on with another club, hoping to revitalize his career and make good on the potential the Cardinals and the rest of baseball once saw in him. I highly doubt this is the end of the line for Carlson, but he will need to turn things around quickly in his next opportunity if he wants to continue his big-league career much longer.