Mets Roster: Getting to know Francisco Lindor and the rest of the new guys

Meet the Mets: Carlos Carrasco

Years before the Cookie Club ever existed, Carlos Carrasco was known by his Cleveland teammates as “Cookie.” In a “getting to know you” interview with Marysol Castro from January of this year, she mentioned that Carrasco’s nickname was coined when former teammates caught him eating cookies in the clubhouse.

Carrasco himself has confirmed this fact in interviews and social media Q&As, revealing years ago that a former Indians pitcher gave him the famous moniker.

When asked by Castro in this latest interview to choose between shortbread cookies, Scooby-Doo graham crackers, and Oreos, Carrasco emphatically picked Oreos. He also revealed that he prefers to dunk his Oreos straight into a glass of milk, rather than twist apart the cookie wafers.

Perhaps he can compare cookie-dunking notes with new teammate J.D. Davis, who described his elaborate cookie eating routine in great detail last year during an episode of SNY’s web series, “The Cookie Club.”

Outside of eating cookies, Carrasco is very busy when he is not playing baseball. In this same interview, he said that one of his favorite non-baseball activities is being a “handyman” and fixing things around the house.

“I do more stuff with electricity, to be honest with you guys. Everything in my house, if we need to put in some fans or move things from one power outlet to another in a different way, I do it. I love to do that. . . If something gets damaged in the house, I always repair it,” said Carrasco.

A few minutes later, Carrasco also said that he often spends his off days fixing things around the house, spending time with his family, or working on one of his many charitable projects and helping out his community. Since his major league debut in 2009, Carrasco has established two charitable foundations. The Carlos Carrasco Foundation is based in the United States and focuses on early childhood education for children in Tampa and Cleveland. The corresponding organization in his home country of Venezuela donates toys, medical supplies, sports equipment, and other necessities to Venezuelans in need.

“Not even COVID is going to stop me from continuing to help out the community,” said Carrasco to Castro near the end of their chat.

Based on what I’ve seen and read about Carrasco so far, he seems like a genuinely wonderful person and has already become one of my favorite Mets.