RADIO
Matt Carpenter had a down year in 2019, which came on the heels of a 2018 season that saw him finish ninth in NL MVP voting. He struggled to get in a groove at any point in 2019 and often found himself out of the lineup late in the season. This was exemplified by his 129 games played, which was tied for his lowest total since 2012. He also only saw 416 at-bats, which was also his lowest total since 2012.
Carpenter hit a paltry .226/.334/.392 with 15 home runs, 59 runs, 46 RBI, and six stolen bases. Not surprisingly, these all fall well below his 162-game averages of .269/.372/.462, 21 home runs, 100 runs, and 75 RBI.
Is this a sign of things to come or is it just a one-season outlier? Carpenter is entering his age-34 season, so age could have played a factor in his regression. Let's look deeper into his 2019 statistics to see what may have caused his lackluster performance and see what we may be able to expect heading into 2020.
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Father Time Catching Up?
One of the biggest drop-offs we saw in Carpenter in 2019 was his K-Rate, which settled in at a paltry 26.2%. This placed him in the bottom 15% of the league. It was also well below his career rate of 19.7%. Aside from the abysmal K-Rate, Carpenter also performed horribly in terms of exit velocity and barrel rate. His exit velocity came in at 88.1 mph, which ranked him in the bottom 25% of the league. His barrel rate was a putrid 4.4%, which ranked him in the bottom 35% of the league. These two stats clearly outline why we saw such diminished power from the star third baseman. This is a guy that had averaged 26 HRs over the previous three seasons and now finds himself hitting under 20.
This decline is something you would expect from an aging infielder. It is likely the Cardinals saw age as a primary reason for the decline as well considering Carpenter was often subbed for the younger Tommy Edman down the stretch. Carpenter also was not a staple in the Cardinals postseason lineup as he was frequently benched for Edman in those games as well.
Some Positives to Draw On
While Carpenter regressed from his career norms in several categories, he did have some success in a few metrics. His BB:K was at 0.49, which ranked him in the top 38% of the league, which is pretty solid. It is, however, much lower than his career rate of 0.68. So, even where we can draw some positives from his 2019 season, negatives are still present.
How about his BABIP? His BABIP sat at .285, nearly 30 points below his career average of .314. This ranked him in the bottom 29% of the league. Usually, we can say a low BABIP like this is the result of a hitter getting unlucky, but in Carpenter's case, it is more likely that his diminished exit velocity resulted in easier plays for the defense to make against him. His .230 xBA ranked in the bottom 10% of the league.
Carpenter did have a tremendous Walk Rate of 12.8% in 2019. This was good enough to place him in the top 12% of the league. This falls right in line with his career average of 13.3%, which is a good sign that his pitch selection has not diminished entirely. The problem here is that his total walk numbers were down due to the lack of AB throughout the season. It could be difficult to depend on him for walks moving forward based on this. Edman proved his worth last season and could drastically cut further into Carpenter's AB in 2020.
2020 Outlook
The 2020 outlook is not good for Matt Carpenter. This time last year, we were talking about a guy who just came off an incredibly strong finish to the 2018 campaign and was being drafted inside the top 75 spots in 2019 drafts. Now, we are looking at an aging veteran who has no true defensive position on the diamond and is likely to be replaced by the younger Tommy Edman moving forward. Early projections have him ranked somewhere around the 30th 3B with an ADP around 300. It is quite the fall from grace, to say the least. He slotted better at 2B but didn't play a single game there last year and will likely lose 1B eligibility too in fantasy leagues.
We should expect to see his counting stats decline from a year ago with a further reduction in AB. We can also expect advanced metrics such as exit velocity, barrel rate, ISO, and hard-hit rate to continue to decline with age. Overall, he is not someone you should be looking at in drafts heading into 2020. He is only worth a late-round flier in much deeper leagues or in NL only leagues. Even then, he likely only returns minimal value if an injury were to occur that would give him regular playing time.
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