Matt Carpenter Builds Power

Matt Carpenter has always been a strange roto player. Historically, he’s one of those guys who is better in real life than fantasy. He often contributed over 700 plate appearances with a chance to hit for a .300 average. He’s an OBP league stud. We knew he’d score plenty of runs, but his RBI opportunities would be truncated by batting leadoff. Alas, the strong two category production would come with fewer than 10 home runs and about five stolen bases.

Carpenter seemed an unlikely candidate for a power breakout, but that’s exactly what happened. In his age 29 campaign, he popped 28 home runs and buffed his way up to 84 RBI. In exchange for power, his whiff rate more than doubled to a still below league average 7.7 percent. His strikeout rate increased from 15.7 percent in 2014 to 21.7 percent last year. Add it all up and we get an unexpected $17 season.

Let’s perform a few smell tests. Carpenter has always produced a high line drive rate with more ground balls than fly balls. He rarely hits infield flies and prefers to pull the ball. This season, his ground ball rate dropped below 30 percent for the first time in his career. The previous low was 38.7 percent. His fly ball and line drive rates surged. He continued to pull the ball and avoid easy outs via infield flies.

As you might expect, his home run to fly ball ratio (HR/FB) went bonkers. Plenty of players produce a luck neutral 15.8 percent HR/FB. However, Carpenter’s career best was just seven percent. His average fly ball distance increased 14 feet between 2014 and 2015 from 270 feet to 284 feet. While the increase in distance is great, 284 feet still isn’t very far. Other players with similar fly ball distances include Eric Hosmer, Kole Calhoun, and Joe Mauer.

One possible explanation is that some of his fliners are getting classified as fly balls. Let’s take a gander at a spray chart.

This is informative. He hits a lot of deep line drives with a mix of red and blue around the warning track. When he gets into one on the pull side, it leaves the yard, but he also gets his best power to center field. His opposite field pop isn’t enough to leave the yard with consistency. ESPN’s home run tracker reveals that 11 of his home runs barely cleared the wall. That jibes with his profile as a line drive hitter.

The statistician in us all should expect regression. However, we can’t simply turn to his career averages. The Carpenter of 2015 was a different player than past iterations. New Carpenter had some things in common with Old Carpenter like a great walk rate, high line drive rate, and plus pitch recognition. We can expect those skills to remain mostly static.

Last season, he still managed a .272 average for a second consecutive season. That’s a difficult feat to pull – after all, he added 40 strikeouts in fewer plate appearances. It’s not a BABIP mirage either. In fact, it’s the 20 extra home runs that allowed Carpenter to post another solid average.

This is where regression could be doubly painful. Personally, I anticipate between 20 and 25 home runs with an outside chance at 30 blasts. What if he falls below 15 home runs without improving his strikeout rate? It’s a possible outcomes, especially if he plays through injury.

In the biggest regression scenario, Carpenter would suddenly decline to a 100/13/60/4/.260 fantasy line. That’s Daniel Murphy plus 30 runs scored. Steamer projects something similar – 90/16/61/6/.269. As we recently discussed, that’s probably a misleading projection. I’m expecting a similar season to 2015 with 100/24/75/4/.270. There is even the potential for him to maintain the power while trading walks for more early count contact (and fewer strikeouts).