Archive for Matt Carpenter

This week’s lineup analysis includes some not-so-great news for Keston Hiura, but some encouraging developments for Matt Carpenter and Kyle Schwarber…

Arizona

Christian Walker hasn’t lost much playing time to Kevin Cron, having started five of the seven games since the latter first baseman’s callup. Cron is now out of the picture, having been optioned back to Triple-A Reno after Thursday’s game. During the Cron Era, Walker was just 3 for 22 with six strikeouts, with two of those hits (including a home run) coming on Thursday.
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Spring is here, and with it comes a renewed sense of optimism for yours truly. The never-ending cold rain and oppressive grayness of my first winter in Seattle is giving way to slightly warmer rain and a lighter shade of gray, and the sun even made an appearance last Tuesday. I’m more excited for baseball season than ever, seeing as I finally live in a major-league city for the first time in my life. Also, WrestleMania and Opening Day — objectively the best two days of the year — land on consecutive days in 2017.

Unfortunately, this time of year also means I get my annual opportunity to make a fool of myself with my Bold Predictions column. The last time I did well with these, I was still in my twenties and The Undertaker’s undefeated WrestleMania streak was intact. I’m not saying that turning 30 (or 31…or 32…) definitively altered my ability to make borderline-crazy-yet-somewhat-possible baseball predictions. However, right around that same time, I developed a bald spot on the top of my head. Without the protective layer of hair, a great many thoughts started escaping my head, and I became much less smart.

What’s changed now? I’m so glad you asked. I recently discovered the incredible Thought Screen Helmet! Originally intended to shield your brain from alien mind-control waves, it turns out that the Thought Screen Helmet not only keeps the aliens out, it also helps keep your thoughts in! Furthermore, the Thought Screen Helmet sports a great track record, with “Only one failure since 1998.”

With my Thought Screen Helmet firmly strapped in, I’m ready to unleash my new and improved Bold Predictions, now featuring occasional accuracy! Hopefully.

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Last week, I wrote a reaction piece to Yahoo’s average auction values at second base. This exercise helped me identify some trends regarding underpaid and overpaid players at the position heading into the 2017 season. One such discovery was that of Matt Carpenter’s budget-friendly $16.2 average auction price.

Considering Carpenter’s prodigious power production over the last two seasons, it surprised me to see that owners were spending more on 11 other 2B, all the way up to Jose Altuve’s steep $49.0 price tag. Specifically, I’m wondering why Carp costs about ten bucks less than anyone in the Robinson Cano/Brian Dozier/Jonathan Villar/Daniel Murphy/Rougned Odor tier. All of those players are going off the board for $25-$28.

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Yahoo launched their fantasy baseball site for 2017 over three weeks ago, which means that by now, there should be some solid trends to analyze in their average draft position and auction value data. There’s some surprises to be found in the early returns, so let’s dive right into the top 12 by average auction price. (When looking at the 2016 values, keep in mind that Turner and Gordon each played roughly half a season, and Carpenter dealt with an oblique injury.)

• Average auction price on Yahoo (2016 end-of-season value)
  • Jose Altuve – $49.0 ($34.7)
  • Trea Turner – $41.2 ($10.7)
  • Robinson Cano – $28.1 ($26.2)
  • Brian Dozier – $26.2 ($27.0)
  • Jonathan Villar – $26.0 ($26.4)
  • Daniel Murphy – $25.2 ($25.4)
  • Rougned Odor – $25.0 ($19.3)
  • Ian Kinsler – $17.7 ($23.7)
  • Dee Gordon – $17.1 (-$4.0)
  • Jean Segura – $16.7 ($24.9)
  • Jason Kipnis – $16.1 ($16.4)
  • Matt Carpenter – $16.1 ($7.2)

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As many surely are, I’m finding it particularly difficult to write about baseball today. And it’ll be a while before the sting of the events of November 8th wears off. More than four years, probably. But in this instance, I must press on. And since we’re likely saying goodbye to a lot of things that we enjoy about the United States (in the most dramatic sense possible), it’s probably appropriate to say goodbye to someone that I’ve really come to admire as a third baseman in Matt Carpenter.

Not that Carpenter is disappearing from the St. Louis Cardinals in the way that many of our American principles are set to disappear from mainstream society. But the Cardinals announced earlier this week that he’d likely become the Cards’ everyday first baseman in 2017. This was a transition that became more apparent down the stretch this past year, with Kolten Wong, Aledmys Diaz, and Jhonny Peralta set to make up the remainder of the infield by the time next season rolls around.

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In the interest of transparency, my original goal here was to examine contact rates across the board for third basemen. But given the factors involved a much more intricate study and time overall, something I currently lack as a high school teacher, I elected to focus on one player in particular that really caught my eye out on the contact side of things.

Given my relatively obvious North Side loyalties, it’s often difficult for me to say positive things about the baseball club from St. Louis, Missouri. But what Matt Carpenter has accomplished to this point in the season has become absolutely impossible to ignore, in at least one very specific respect. While he doesn’t necessarily bring the loud home run power that some of his third base counterparts tend to demonstrate on a daily basis, he’s hitting the ball harder than all of them. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a hitter in Major League Baseball that makes hard contact at the rate that Carpenter has turned in this year.

That’s because only two of them exist.

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We haven’t done a good ol’ fashioned rankings since the start of the season, so the All-Star Break seems like the perfect time to re-examine some of the selections that were made in the initial 2016 set. Obviously things have changed, but given that it’s the middle of July, nobody is surprising us anymore. We know largely who is who and what they bring to the table, while others have dropped off due to positional eligibility. While there’s still room for bounce back or decline, we know where we stand at the season’s midway point.

While these rankings still remain somewhat subjective, based on the individual elements I tend to look at, neither Kris Bryant or Jake Lamb ended up no. 1, so the bias may not have shone through as much as it otherwise could have. Enjoy the rest of your break before the stove starts to heat up.

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I don’t really like tiers, but it probably has something to do with the neatness of placing a player in a designated strata. I’ve never used tiers in fantasy baseball drafts because I think it tends to blind you to the nuances of each player and the specific needs your team might have. But now that the season has started, you should be all drafted up and it’s time to brand your cattle.

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The Cardinals infield returns three regulars from last year but only has two players manning the same position and has one completely new face. But regardless of whether they’re old or new, I probably like all five players less than the general public based on early ADP data.

One of the two guys manning the same position is a Cardinal stalwart, Yadier Molina. I looked into Molina earlier this off season and his value derived primarily from his batting average last year as he provided more fantasy value with his batting average than any other catcher thanks to the second highest average at the position and a relatively high number of plate appearances. But he didn’t do the things that made him great in 2012. His HR/FB rate returned to about his career rate, so he hit 12 home runs as opposed to 22. His speed went away as quickly as it appeared, so he stole 3 bases as opposed to 12.

Without the 2012 power/speed combo that is basically unheard of at his position, Molina absolutely must have his average remain high for his fantasy value to remain high. That’s a little scary because Molina’s BABIP was .338 last year. To be fair, his xBABIP was .331 thanks in large part to a 24.3% line drive rate. But it’s just a little nerve-wracking to be drafting a guy that is so BABIP dependent when BABIP is such a fickle stat. For example, Molina had a 24.8% line drive rate and .344 xBABIP in 2012, but his actual BABIP was only .316. Read the rest of this entry »

A new month is always a good time to look at splits. Actually, the ‘Last 30’ split available on the site allows you to look at the last “month” at anytime you would like, but there is something arbitrarily pleasing about looking at totals from a calendar month.

One of the more interesting things about May splits is how different the reactions are to stats in the second month of the season compared to the first. For example, there was plenty of concern for Eric Homser, Asdrubal Cabrera and Allen Craig after an April in which they had wOBAs of .288, .288 and .287, respectively. However, there isn’t a ton of panic concerning Justin Upton, Carlos Santana and Starling Marte who all had wOBAs under .300 in May. Read the rest of this entry »