{"id":121546,"date":"2026-05-09T16:57:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=121546"},"modified":"2026-05-09T17:33:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T21:33:31","slug":"carmichael-draft-steal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/09\/carmichael-draft-steal\/","title":{"rendered":"Easton Carmichael Is Becoming a Draft Steal for the Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted catching prospect Easton Carmichael<\/a> in the third round of the 2025 draft (82nd overall). Heading into the draft, Carmichael ranked as a borderline top 100 draft prospect by MLB Pipeline<\/a> (#93) and Baseball America<\/a> (#91). Carmichael is off to a scorching hot start to the 2026 campaign. His great start is also making him look like a massive steal from the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n

Easton Carmichael Looks Like a Draft Steal in 2026<\/h2>\n

Carmichael hit well at the University of Oklahoma during the 2025 college season. He batted .329\/.398\/.613 with 17 home runs over 274 plate appearances. The young backstop only struck out 15.7% of the time while walking at a 9.1% rate. Carmichael also performed well in the Cape Cod League, slashing .299\/.372\/.496 with a 17.8% K% and 8.9% walk rate. Although he struggled throughout his first 56 pro plate appearances late last season at High-A Greensboro, he\u2019s started the year on fire in 2026.<\/p>\n

Scorching Hot Start to 2026<\/h3>\n

It has only been 110 plate appearances, but he is batting .333\/.382\/.529 with a .407 wOBA, and 133 wRC+. Carmichael has already hit four home runs and has an isolated slugging percentage just a few ticks under .200 at .196. He has had no problems making contact so far, with a 79.8% contact rate and a strikeout percentage of just 10.9%. The only downside is that Carmichael\u2019s walk rate clocks in at an unimpressive 7.3% mark.<\/p>\n

One of the Best Offensive Performances Among Fellow Minor League Catchers<\/h3>\n

Overall, Carmichael has performed like one of the best-hitting minor league catchers. Among the 68 peers at his position with at least 100 plate appearances this season, he is one of only 17 with an OPS of at least .900 and a wOBA of at least .400. Carmichael also has the third-lowest K%, and tied with fellow Greensboro catcher Axiel Plaz for the third-best batting average.<\/p>\n

\"Oklahoma
Oklahoma’s Easton Carmichael (2) hits during the college baseball game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and Lehigh at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman, Okla., Friday, Feb., 14, 2025. \u00a9 SARAH PHIPPS\/THE OKLAHOMAN \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carmichael is also a surprisingly aggressive baserunner. He stole 30 bases in 172 college games and went six-for-six in the Cape Cod League. In 25 games this year, he is six-for-seven in stolen base attempts. At his current pace and success rate, Carmichael has the potential to swipe 25+ bags this year if he stays healthy. He would become just the eighth minor league backstop to steal 25+ bases dating back to 2006.<\/p>\n

Out-Performing Even the Best First Round Pick From 2025<\/h3>\n

Carmichael is performing just as well, if not better than, a handful of first-round picks. The number one pick of the draft, Eli Willits with the Washington Nationals, is batting .267\/.403\/.442 with a .401 wOBA, and 132 wRC+ at A-Ball. The Miami Marlins took the top college position player with the seventh overall pick of the draft. He has missed a large portion of the year thus far after undergoing core surgery. Fellow first-round college picks like Marek Huston and Gavin Klein have not performed as well as Carmichael, despite playing at the same level in High-A.<\/p>\n

A Well-Rounded Profile<\/h3>\n

Carmichael does not have one particular weakness in his game right now. Pipeline grades four of his five tools as a 50 or better. BA also sees three of his five abilities as a 50 or better. Carmichael hits for plenty of contact and has enough raw power to potentially hit for average pop in the future. His glovework behind the dish needs refining. However, his athleticism is above-average which could help him improve his catching defense. That athleticism could help Carmichael transition to a corner infield\/outfield position if his defense behind the plate does not improve as expected.<\/p>\n

As of right now, Carmichael ranks as the Pirates\u2019 17th-best prospect on MLB Pipeline<\/a> and their 26th-best on Baseball America<\/a>. It is still early in the year, and while he has yet to get challenged at Double-A, he should start climbing prospect rankings very soon. This kind of performance deserves some recognition. If he continues to perform well as he gets to Double-A Altoona (which should be soon, given he is already 22), Carmichael may become one of the Pirates\u2019 better position player prospects. Also with the Pirates’ current catching situation<\/a>, Carmichael has a chance to become their future backstop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: SARAH PHIPPS\/THE OKLAHOMAN \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted catching prospect Easton Carmichael in the third round of the 2025 draft (82nd overall). Heading into the draft, Carmichael ranked as a borderline top 100 draft prospect by MLB Pipeline (#93) and Baseball America (#91). Carmichael is off to a scorching hot start to the 2026 campaign. His great start is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5765,"featured_media":121598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"688","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,35,26],"tags":[29508,29419,1308],"class_list":["post-121546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-news","category-pirates","tag-easton-carmichael","tag-eli-willits","tag-mlb-prospects"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121610,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121546\/revisions\/121610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}