Matt Carpenter

We laughed when the Rangers signed Carpenter to a minor league deal when he looked all but done after a three-year tumpe from 2018. We laughed at his Top Gun tribute of a mustache and laughed when the Yankees traded for him to cover for injuries, but it was Carpenter who had the last laugh as he absolutely mashed in part time duty with the Yankees hitting 15 homers and driving in 37 runners in just 47 games of play with a gaudy .305/.412/.727 triple-slash line. He particularly enjoyed the situation at Yankee Stadium where he hit and absurd .388/.524/1.082 with 9 homers compared to .253/.333/.506 on the road. If we his agent, we would tell him to play for the league minimum and stay in Yankee Stadium but the Yankees may not agree. Carpenter showed enough last year to earn a one-year, $12 million contract with the Padres, but the massive home/road splits are a concern given his success was very much driven by an extremely heavy pull approach and a 31% HR/FB rate which is nearly triple his career rate. Do not make the mistake of wishcasting his 2022 numbers into 500 plate appearances as too many things would have to go right for that to happen and Carpenter may have used up all his wishes last season.

The 2020 season was another step in what has been a gradual but steady decline for Carpenter. The main source of his struggles has been his inability to make contact with pitches inside the zone, as his Z-contact% has fallen each of the past five seasons from 92% in 2016 to 79.8% in 2020. His strikeout rate has followed suit, rising in five consecutive seasons and topping out at 28.4% in 2020. Further evidence of Carpenter's declining bat speed is his recent failure against fastballs. Once the strength of his profile -- in his prime, he regularly slugged .550 and above against the pitch -- he managed just a .408 slugging percentage against heat in 2020. Unthinkable two seasons ago, Carpenter could lose playing time to younger players such as Edmundo Sosa or Elehirus Montero without a drastic turnaround, and he may not get enough playing time to lock in the vesting option on his contract for 2022.

Raise your hand if waited for Carpenter to flip the script like in 2018. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be as he posted a career low average and OPS. Carpenter also amassed his second fewest plate appearances, the lowest since his first full season. Carpenter's contact rate dropped for the third straight year while his walk rate dipped for the second consecutive campaign. His average exit velocity was its lowest since Statcast began tracking in 2015. Carpenter had a couple of IL stints in July, but he was slashing just .216/.327/.384 prior to the first visit, so his slow start was more than health. Carpenter is an extreme flyball hitter, so if he fails to drive the ball with authority, the pop outs will pile up, especially at home in spacious Busch Stadium. Carpenter will be 34, a little young for such a marked collapse. The cost to speculate on a rebound is minimal; just have an exit plan.

On May 15, Carpenter went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, and his slash line sat at .140/.286/.272. Many wondered if Carpenter's shoulder, the one he declined surgery on in the offseason, was hurting too much for him to be productive. A look at the Statcast data told us that Carpenter was the victim of bad luck as his batted-ball data should have produced a .430 SLG. The next day, Carpenter had two doubles, and went on a tear that resulted in him hitting .287/.397/.587 the rest of the season. The craziest part about those numbers is that Carpenter only had five extra-base hits in the final month of the season. From May 15 through Aug. 31, he hit .317/.420/.677! He hits a plethora of flyballs, and is coming off a career-high hard-contact rate. We have a monster summer bookended by a miserable April and September. The multi-positional eligibility (1B and 3B, and 2B in leagues with a 10-game minimum) is a bonus.

Carpenter was a top-45 real-life hitter last season as measured by wRC+ (123), but his .241 average kept him outside the top 100 among hitters in terms of earned value in traditional fantasy formats. He maintained a strikeout rate right around 20 percent while upping his walk rate to 17.5 percent, which was the fifth-best mark among qualified hitters. Opposing pitchers rarely fooled Carpenter -- his 16.6 O-Swing percentage was the second-lowest in baseball, trailing only Joey Votto -- and Carpenter routinely squared the ball up, posting the eighth-best hard-hit rate. However, he may have gotten a little too flyball happy (50.8 percent), and that combined with some tough luck on balls in play (.274 BABIP) hurt his overall numbers. Carpenter's performance against lefties did decline (.202/.343/.321), but it was a relatively small sample (109 at-bats). Expect a rebound, and it's possible Carpenter will regain eligibility at second base at some point.

Consistency has been the name of the game for Carpenter, who recorded a batting average above the .270 mark for the third consecutive season. While this has become expected from the 30-year-old, he drastically improved his patience at the plate. As a result, he finished the season with a .380 on-base percentage and was regularly the club's leadoff hitter. Naturally, the switch to hitting first came with a drop in RBI as he knocked in just 68 runs, nearly 20 fewer than he did in 2015, but he could move back down in the order following the addition of Dexter Fowler. He'll be highly valuable no matter where he hits in the order. It's worth noting that Carpenter dealt with an oblique injury that landed him on the disabled list for nearly a month in the second half of the season, but if he can stay healthy, Carpenter should have no problem reaching 20 home runs for the third straight year.

Carpenter hit like a third baseman upon moving to the position in 2015, and he swatted a career-best 28 home runs and delivered a league-leading 44 doubles. His .505 slugging percentage was a career high but he also struck out a whopping 151 times on his way to matching his .272 average from 2014. Carpenter almost certainly promises to provide value to his fantasy owners in 2016, but what kind of value isn't completely known given the recent change in approach, and the real question is whether owners can still profit at his increased cost. He's only two years removed from hitting .318 with a .392 OBP and just 98 strikeouts. Locked up through 2020, Carpenter at 29 figures to be the Cardinals' starting third baseman for the foreseeable future. He will likely hit near the top of the lineup again and is a near lock for 100 runs as he's averaged 109 a season over his last three years.

While Carpenter wasn't able to repeat his unlikely 2013 season when he posted a terrific 6.9 WAR and racked up a gaudy 126 runs he delivered another very good season, this time at third base for the Cardinals. Carpenter scored 99 runs while hitting .272/.375/.375 in 2014, but he lost his eligibility at second base with the permanent position switch. His BABIP fell from .359 to .318, explaining some of the decrease in his numbers, but he did see his walk rate tick up to 13.4%. Even though he doesn't provide much pop Carpenter, proved to be a solid third baseman in a year where there were few options at the position. It's possible the Cardinals could move him down into the second or third spot in the lineup, giving him a chance to drive in more runs. Regardless of where he lands in the order, Carpenter will look to deliver another top-10 season at the hot corner in 2015.

The Cardinals got a lot more than they were expecting from Carpenter when the 28-year-old utility man excelled in his first year at second base, hitting .318 in 717 plate appearances. He's not a prototypical leadoff hitter in that he does not offer great speed, but most of his advanced stats suggest that his 2013 season was not a fluke. As long as he's hitting near the top of the Cardinals' stacked lineup, he should be good for 100-plus runs again in 2014. Even with a move to third base following the trade of David Freese to Anaheim, Carpenter will offer fantasy owners flexibility by qualifying at second base as well this season.

It seems like Carpenter had a better year than his numbers showed. You may scoff at the 44 runs and 46 RBI from a corner infielder, but he did that in just 296 at-bats and qualifies at first, third and outfield (and possibly second base) in most leagues. Further, the 27-year-old has regularly posted an on-base percentage north of .400 in the minors. With Lance Berkman out of the picture, Carpenter could get the opportunity to win the everyday job at first base this season and post numbers reminiscent of Mark Grace.

Carpenter spent a couple of weeks with the Cardinals in June, but managed a single hit in 15 at-bats. That's the bad news. The good news is he had a 4:4 BB:K ratio in that stint, which perfectly illustrates his main strength as a hitter - his batting eye. With an 84:68 BB:K ratio with Triple-A Memphis leading to .419 OBP, Carpenter has the potential to be a good hitter at the major league level. His power isn't immense, especially for a corner infielder, and he's already 26, but if he can continue to get on base, he should be able to make a dent in the majors.