Matt Carpenter

38-Year-Old DHDH

Free Agent

2024 Stats

AVG

.234

RBI

Rest-of-Season Projections

AVG

RBI

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2024 Fantasy Outlook

Carpenter had a resurgence in the Bronx in 2022 with 15 homers in 47 games, but he was unable to replicate those numbers in San Diego last year. The veteran slugger played in 76 contests for the Friars and had a .176/.322/.319 slash line and just five home runs, with a 17.9 percent walk rate being the only real positive. Carpenter was then traded to Atlanta in November and subsequently released. The 38-year-old has a sub-.650 OPS in three of the past four seasons and seems unlikely to have another resurgence in him. Read Past Outlooks

RANKS

Rest of Season

From Preseason

#362

ADP

Bats L

Throws R

40 Man No

Height 6'3"

Weight 200

DOB 11/26/1985

Drafted 13th Rd 2009

Losing DH gig to Luken Baker

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

August 29, 2024

Carpenter is out of the lineup for Thursday's game against the Padres.

ANALYSIS
After going 1-for-12 with a home run and three walks over a stretch of five starts in six games, Carpenter's time as the Cardinals' primary designated hitter looks to have come and gone. He finds himself on the bench for a third straight game Thursday, with the Cardinals having faced right-handed pitchers in each of those contests. Luken Baker now looks to be St. Louis' preferred option at DH.

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Batting Stats

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2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2024 MLB Game Log

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2023 MLB Game Log

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2022 MLB Game Log

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2021 MLB Game Log

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2020 MLB Game Log

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2018 MLB Game Log

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2017 MLB Game Log

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Minor League Game Log

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Batting Order Slot Breakdown

vs Right-Handed Pitchers

vs RHP

vs Left-Handed Pitchers

vs LHP

Left/Right Batting Splits

Since 2022

+38%

OPS vs LHP

2024

+4%

OPS vs RHP

2023

+56%

OPS vs LHP

2022

+16%

OPS vs LHP

	OPS	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
Since 2022vs Left	1.041	75	15	6	23	0	.313	.400	.641
Since 2022vs Right	.755	471	46	18	60	1	.216	.336	.419
2024vs Left	.663	19	1	0	3	0	.294	.368	.294
2024vs Right	.690	137	14	4	12	0	.225	.307	.383
2023vs Left	.960	18	4	1	4	0	.286	.389	.571
2023vs Right	.615	218	14	4	27	1	.167	.317	.299
2022vs Left	1.270	38	10	5	16	0	.333	.421	.848
2022vs Right	1.093	116	18	10	21	0	.295	.409	.684
More Splits→	View More Split Stats

Home/Away Batting Splits

Since 2022

+25%

OPS at Home

2024

+55%

OPS at Home

2023

+32%

OPS on Road

2022

+91%

OPS at Home

	OPS	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
Since 2022Home	.893	256	35	13	50	1	.248	.379	.515
Since 2022Away	.712	290	26	11	33	0	.215	.315	.397
2024Home	.849	75	9	3	12	0	.262	.373	.475
2024Away	.549	81	6	1	3	0	.211	.259	.289
2023Home	.555	118	9	1	13	1	.167	.305	.250
2023Away	.730	118	9	4	18	0	.185	.339	.391
2022Home	1.605	63	17	9	25	0	.388	.524	1.082
2022Away	.840	91	11	6	12	0	.253	.333	.506
More Splits→	View More Split Stats

Stat Review

How does Matt Carpenter compare to other hitters?

This section compares his stats with all batting seasons from the previous three seasons (minimum 400 plate appearances)*. The bar represents the player's percentile rank. For example, if the bar is halfway across, then the player falls into the 50th percentile for that stat and it would be considered average.

* Exit Velocity and Barrels/PA % are benchmarked against 2019 data (min 400 PA) and Hard Hit Rate is benchmarked against last season's data (min 400 PA). See here for more exit velocity/barrels stats plus an explanation of current limitations with that data set.

BB/K
Walk to strikeout ratio
BB Rate
The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a walk.
K Rate
The percentage of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout.
BABIP
Batting average on balls in play. Measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits.
ISO
Isolated Power. Slugging percentage minus batting average. A computation used to measure a batter's raw power.
AVG
Batting average. Hits divided by at bats.
OBP
On Base Percentage. A measure of how often a batters reaches base. Roughly equal to number of times on base divided by plate appearances.
SLG
Slugging Percentage. A measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats.
OPS
On base plus slugging. THe sum of a batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
wOBA
Weighted on-base average. Measures a player's overall offensive contributions per plate appearance. wOBA combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.
Exit Velocity
The speed of the baseball as it comes off the bat, immediately after a batter makes contact.
Hard Hit Rate
A measure of contact quality from Sports Info Solutions. This stat explains what percentage of batted balls were hit hard vs. medium or soft.
Barrels/PA
The percentage of plate appearances where a batter had a batted ball classified as a Barrel. A Barrel is a batted ball with similar exit velocity and launch angle to past ones that led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage.
Expected BA
Expected Batting Average.
Expected SLG
Expected Slugging Percentage.
Sprint Speed
The speed of a runner from home to first, in feet per second.
Ground Ball %
The percentage of balls put in play that are on the ground.
Line Drive %
The percentage of balls put in play that are line drives.
Fly Ball %
The percentage of balls put in play that are fly balls.

BB/K

0.29

BB Rate

9.6%

K Rate

32.7%

BABIP

.333

ISO

.139

AVG

.234

OBP

.314

SLG

.372

OPS

.686

wOBA

.306

Exit Velocity

85.8 mph

Hard Hit Rate

28.4%

Barrels/PA

3.8%

Expected BA

.211

Expected SLG

.350

Sprint Speed

20.6 ft/sec

Ground Ball %

26.7%

Line Drive %

26.7%

Fly Ball %

46.5%

Advanced Batting Stats

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Additional Stats

Games By Position

Defensive Stats

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Batted Ball Stats

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Stats Vs Upcoming Pitchers

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Recent RotoWire Articles Featuring Matt Carpenter See More

Weekly Hitter Rankings: Playing for Both Sides

89 days ago

Bobby Witt and the Royals play eight games the week of August 26 to September 1, making them a top team in Todd Zola's weekly hitter rankings.

Weekly Hitter Rankings: The Queen City is Red Hot

138 days ago

Elly De La Cruz and the Cincinnati Reds host two subpar pitching staffs, as Todd Zola delivers the final Weekly Hitter Rankings before the All-Star break, covering the week of July 8-14.

Weekly Hitter Rankings: Rocky Mountain Fireworks

145 days ago

Francisco Lindor and the New York Mets are hardly grimacing on their hot run, and Todd Zola points out theirs is one of the few teams that has seven games upcoming in this edition of Weekly Hitter Rankings.

Weekly Hitter Rankings: Busy Way to End the Month

152 days ago

Gunnar Henderson and the Baltimore Orioles are one of the teams that is home for all seven games, as Todd Zola highlights the prime hitting matchups for the week of June 24-30.

Weekly Hitter Rankings: Left-handed compliment

159 days ago

Fernando Tatis Jr. leads a San Diego Padres offensive attack that has one of the highest Weekly Hitter Rankings set by Todd Zola for the week starting June 17.

Past Fantasy Outlooks

2023

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

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.

More Fantasy News

Not in Wednesday's lineup

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

August 28, 2024

Carpenter is not in the lineup for Wednesday's contest versus the Padres.

ANALYSIS
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Picking up starts against righties

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

August 26, 2024

Carpenter will serve as the Cardinals' designated hitter and No. 8 batter in Monday's game against the Padres.

ANALYSIS
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Provides offense off bench

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

August 21, 2024

Carpenter hit a two-run home-run as a pinch hitter in Tuesday's 3-2 loss to the Brewers.

ANALYSIS
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Returns from injured list

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

August 20, 2024

The Cardinals reinstated Carpenter (back) from the 10-day injured list Tuesday.

ANALYSIS
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Shut down with back injury

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

Back

August 12, 2024

The Cardinals placed Carpenter on the 10-day injured list Monday with a lower-back strain.

ANALYSIS
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Latest Fantasy Rumors

Open to playing in 2025

DHSt. Louis Cardinals

September 20, 2024

Carpenter said Thursday that he's "certainly open" to continuing his baseball career in 2025, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

ANALYSIS
Carpenter, who turns 39 in November, has slashed .236/.317/.378 with four home runs over 54 games as a pinch hitter and occasional designated hitter for the Cardinals this season. St. Louis is paying him the minimum, with San Diego and Atlanta responsible for the bulk of his $5.5 million salary. He'll be a free agent this offseason and said he wouldn't mind a pinch hitter/veteran leader role again, but it's unclear whether there will be any teams eager to offer him such an opportunity.

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