It’s been awhile since I posted here, but I assure it is not for a lack of #want. Instead I’ve writing for TTFB and Baseball Professor. I wrote about Eric Hosmer at TTFB and Chris Davis at Baseball Professor. If you want to stay current on what I’m writing your best bet is check out those sites. In the next few days you’ll see I profiled Ian Kinsler and Jason Kipnis. Below is the player capsule for Matt Carpenter. The “RK” refers to the positional rank and are subject to change. The “Player Rater” numbers are positional player rater values taken from ESPN and NFBC.
Bats: L | Age: 27 | Team: Cardinals | Position: 2B, 3B | RK: 3 | Player Rater: ESPN (3), NFBC (4)
A show of hands of who saw Carpenter putting up the season he did in 2013? I literally had no idea he had this in him. In last year’s guide I had him as a fringe top 15 second base candidate who could score some runs, provide a little pop, but ultimately would regress because the BABIP was not repeatable. Not only did he repeat the BABIP, it actually increased. As of now, Carpenter is my second ranked second baseman because he provides two elite category statistics: runs and batting average. One could argue there’s no way the Cardinals are going to hit .330 again with men in scoring position so Carpenter’s major league leading run total will decrease. That’s true, but the Cardinals should replace Pete Kozma at shortstop and they’re replacing Carlos Beltran with Matt Adams and David Freese with Kolten Wong so the offense should be at the very least the same as last year. On the surface Carpenter’s RBI total seems really high a leadoff hitter in the National League. Among second basemen he only ranked 18th in plate appearances with runners in scoring position, so it’s likely his .413 batting average will regress and therefore his RBI totals should regress. The bat is for real; he can hit righties and lefties and most importantly, reduced his strikeout nearly five percentage points while maintaining his walk rate.
