2016 MLB Player Profile: Matt Carpenter

Matt Carpenter averaged just over eight home runs from 2012-14. In those three seasons he hit a total of 25 home runs. So, of course, he went out in 2015 and hit 28 big flies for the Cardinals. What gives with the 30 year old who seemingly changed his game in his fifth big league season?

Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.

THE NUMBERS

2011: He had 19 plate appearances over seven games.

2012: Appeared in 114 games hitting a solid .294 with a .365 OBP. He hit six homers, drove in 46 and scored 44 times.

2013: His first complete season resulted in a .318-11-78-126 line over 157 games. He also socked a massive 55 doubles.

2014: His production regressed but his .272-8-59-99-5 line was still effective – given his position. He only played third base though so he lost his second base eligibility heading into 2015.

2015: Somehow socked 28 homers while also driving in a career best 84 runs. He scored 101 runs, a third straight season of 99 runs scored. He hit .272 for the second season in a row while hitting 44 doubles for the Cardinals.

THE POWER STROKE

This is the first and most obvious place to start with any analysis on Carpenter. Again, Carpenter hit 25 homers from 2012-14, and he bettered that mark by three big flies with his 28 homers last season.

Isolated Power (SLG-AVG) speaks to the damage a batter can do with his, well, bat. The league average is about .140. From 2011-14 Carpenter owned a mark of .139. Yep, League average. Last year that mark shot up to .233. That’s a jump of what, 40 percent? That just doesn’t happen. A doubles hitter who struggles to reach double-digits in homers doesn’t jump to 19^th overall in baseball in Isolated Power.

From 2011-14 Carpenter posted a SLG of .433. Last season the mark jumped to .505. That just doesn’t happen to a player as established as Carpenter.

While those two facts are a bit inexplicable, it’s clear that Carpenter did change his approach in ‘15.

1 – Carpenter wasn’t afraid to let ‘er rip. Matt has played three seasons of 150 or more games. The first two of those seasons he averaged 105 strikeouts. Last season that marked catapulted up to 151. That’s a massive jump of more than 45 percent.

2 – In 2013-14 his swinging strike rate was under four percent. Last season that mark jumped to 7.7 percent. He offered a nearly 100 percent uptick in his swinging strike and miss rate last season. That’s horrible.

3 – Entering last season Carpenter had a fly ball rate of 35 percent, right on the league average. Last season that mark surged to 41.6 percent. May not seem like it, but that is a pretty substantial jump.

4 –  In 2013-14 he had a HR/FB rate of five percent. F I V E percent. Last year the mark was 300 percent higher at 15.8 percent. That just doesn’t happen. Well it does, but it never ends well (see below).

5 – From 2011-14 Carpenter had a 34.0 percent pull rate, he hit 39.7 percent of balls to center and 26.3 percent of batted balls to the opposite field. Last season the marks changed: 39.3 percent pull, 36.8 to center, 23.9 to the opposite field.

I can’t help but think of Joe Mauer. I’m sure others have made this comparison since it’s so obvious. Here’s why.

Carpenter: At 29 years of age his power broke out. After averaging eight homers the previous three seasons he then hit 28 homers.

J. Mauer: At 25 years of age his power broke out. After averaging 10 homers the previous three seasons he then hit 28 homers. He went from an 8.1 HR/FB ratio from 2006-08 to an off the charts 20.4 percent mark in 2009. Just like Carpenter, a massive uptick. We all know what happened to Mauer the following year though, right? His HR/FB ratio dropped back down to 6.7 percent and he hit nine home runs.

Carpenter isn’t Mauer, but the comparisons are obvious.

Can Carpenter hold on to what he showed last season or will he revert to being the doubles hitter he used to be? I can say this. It would be foolish to expect Carpenter to hold on to the HR/FB ratio he flashed last season. Recall, Carpenter had never posted a HR/FB ratio of 7.1 percent before last season. That means if he were to be at, say 11 percent in 2016, that would be easily the second best mark of his career. It would also mean that hitting 20 homers would be possible, but a slight stretch.

APPROACH

How much did things change for Carpenter with the added pop last season?

Carpenter produced a walk rate of 12.2 percent. That’s a traditional Carpenter number given his career rate of 11.7 percent. No issue there.

Carpenter had that huge increase in the strikeout column pushing his K-rate up to 22.7 percent. The previous two seasons his K-rate was 15 percent. The result was a 0.54 BB/K rate, well below the 0.81 mark he posted in 2013-14.

Carpenter swung at 39.3 percent of the pitches he saw last season. The previous two years the mark was 35 percent.

Carpenter swung at 60.1 percent of the pitches he saw in the strike zone last season. That’s well above the 53 percent mark he posted in 2013-14.

Carpenter made contact when swinging at pitches outside the strike zone 65.9 percent of the time. That mark was way off the 78 percent mark he posted the previous two seasons. Way off.

Carpenter had an 89.5 percent rate of contact when swinging the bat from 2011-14. That number plummeted to 80.2 percent last season.

One word for all of that – yikes.

This approach, while helping deliver the pop, is not good when it comes to batting average. After batting .294 and .318 in 2012 and 2013, Carpenter has hit .272 in each of the last two seasons.

Last season he posted a .321 BABIP. That’s below the .334 BABIP he owns for his career. That’s in the realm of the expected so no worries, that is until we take a bit deeper look. I can’t help but see that 28.5 percent line drive rate last season and get extremely nervous. Carpenter owns a tremendous 25.9 percent mark for his career, but no one on the planet can maintain a 28 percent mark. The rate will fall, and with it his chances of producing base hits will decrease. Don’t forget that he also jacked up his fly ball rate last season and that will also hurt his chances of improving his batting average if he keeps hitting the ball in the air so frequently.

THE OTHER COUNTING STATS

Carpenter has never stolen more than five bases.

Carpenter has never driven in 85 runs.

Carpenter is a monster in the runs scored department. Each of the last three seasons he’s scored at least 99 times. The only other player who can match that is Mike Trout.

Carpenter has scored 326 runs the last three years. Only Trout has scored more with 328.

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