Carlos Virahonda’s rise has been one of the loudest turnarounds in the Diamondbacks’ system this year.
Not long ago, the 20-year-old catcher looked like he was running out of runway. After signing out of Venezuela, he went back to the Dominican Summer League in 2024 and struggled badly, hitting .156 with a .510 OPS in 49 games. Two years later, he’s back on the prospect radar and drawing everyday-catcher projections again.
Arizona named Virahonda its 2026 Minor League Player of the Year after a season that took him across three levels and all the way up to Double-A Amarillo, where he appeared in four games. Most of his work came with Low-A Visalia and High-A Hillsboro, and the production was impossible to ignore: a .272/.377/.493 line, 19 home runs and 94 RBIs in 102 games.
That kind of jump is why evaluators have taken another hard look at him. Virahonda’s bat has questions attached to it, especially around his aggressiveness.
His chase rate was north of 30%, and that would usually set off alarms. But D-backs farm director Chris Slivka says the numbers don’t tell the full story.
“If you look at some of the chase numbers, you might think he doesn’t have a great approach at the plate,” Slivka said. “I think it’s the opposite. He knows how to pick and choose.
“He goes up there with a game plan. He has a great two-strike approach and is able to shorten up when he needs to. I think that’s why you see sub-20% strikeout rate.”
Virahonda’s power surge also came without a huge jump in raw exit velocity. His 90th percentile EV sits right around 100 mph, which is slightly below-average for his age. Even so, Slivka believes the catcher gets more out of his strength than the data might suggest, thanks to contact quality and the angles he creates.
The numbers back up the growth. Virahonda nearly quintupled his home run total from the previous year, and his isolated slugging percentage climbed from .104 to .221 while he kept his strikeout rate at 17%.
At 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, Virahonda still has room to fill out, according to Slivka. The farm director even pointed to another Arizona catcher, Gabriel Moreno, as a reminder that the raw data doesn’t always capture the full picture.
“People talked about Gabi having suboptimal exit velocities when he was a prospect,” Slivka said, referring to Gabriel Moreno. “But when you start to dissect the approach, these are guys who in hitter’s counts can drive the ball in the air to the pull side . . .
“They just have multiple (golf) clubs in their bag. (Virahonda) has that. He knows when to pull out his driver more often.”
The defensive side of Virahonda’s game is much less up for debate. He’s widely viewed as a potentially plus defender with a plus arm, and he’s also earned strong marks for his makeup, including the work he has put in to become bilingual.
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