St. Louis Cardinals: Matt Carpenter, Still Underrated

St. Louis Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter has been one of the better players in baseball the past year and a half, and he still isn’t getting his due.

SportingNews.com recently released its list of the Top 50 MLB players as of right now, and a slight stir was caused as the list excluded St. Louis Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter, who many (myself included, as you will see) believe has more than earned a spot among the better players in the game.

Now, lists like this don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, and this is just one of an unlimited number of rankings. I don’t write this to disparage or shame anyone who was involved in making the list; I simply disagree with the choice and think it was a pretty major oversight that might show that Carpenter is, as a whole, underrated.

There are a lot of factors as to why Carpenter has generally flown under the radar. For one, he got a somewhat late start on his career, making his major league debut at age 26 in 2011, not becoming an everyday player until the following season. He wasn’t a highly touted prospect, and I doubt anyone expected him to become the kind of player he has.

Beyond that is his style of play (at least early on in his career, before his recent surge that I will touch on later), which isn’t/wasn’t particularly exciting, and may not show up in traditional numbers. Carpenter does a lot of his damage by drawing walks and hitting doubles, and generally doesn’t have flashy batting average, home run or RBI numbers.

He hit. 272 in 2014, and hit just eight home runs and drove in just 59 runs. But, thanks to a walk rate of 13.4 percent he posted an OBP of .375. The production was there, but it didn’t necessarily show if you didn’t dig a bit deeper. He was good, but maybe not top 50 good.

More from St. Louis Cardinals

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• St. Louis Cardinals: Adam Wainwright at loss for words after crumbling against Pittsburgh
• Pete Alonso makes good after “brain fart” that drew ire of St. Louis Cardinals fans
• With one shocking move, Pete Alonso infuriates St. Louis Cardinals players and fans
• St. Louis Cardinals: Albert Pujols on what the Cardinals need to do in 2024 to improve

Last year, though, things changed. He still hit the same .272, and the OBP actually went down a touch to .365, but whereas he had just a .103 isolated power (ISO) and eight home runs in 2014, those  numbers jolted up to .233 and 28, adding legitimate power to on-base ability and solid defensive value.

That probably should have been enough to elevate him to top 50 status, at the least. His wRC+ (which measures total offensive production adjusted for park and league) was 13th best in baseball at 139, and his WAR wasn’t far behind at 5.2 wins, good for 17th in baseball.

Now, coming into the season it would have been fair to question whether than kind of production would stick around. While his absence of power in 2014 wasn’t necessarily common for him — he posted ISOs of .169 and .163 in 2012 and 2013 — being 21st in the league in home runs and 19th in ISO was far more than would have been expected.

Any potential questions have now been answered, though. The power has not gone away, and has in fact increased even more. Carpenter already has 23 doubles, five triples and 13 home runs — pacing out to roughly 48, 10 and 27 over a full season — good for a massive .280 ISO, 10th highest so far in 2016.

Maintaining that newfound power would have probably been enough on his own. But Carpenter chose to also go ahead and improve his batting average — or rather get it back to where it was in 2012 and 2013 (.294 and .318) — while also walking even more than he had been, up to a 15.9 percent rate. Last year, Carpenter seemed to trade some contact ability for some power. This year, at least so far, he has both, firmly placing him among the elite, if he wasn’t there already.

Next: Bryce Harper's Slump Illustrates His Greatness

He is currently fifth in OBP (.413), third in wRC+ (163) and 13th in WAR (3.1, thanks mainly to unfavorable defensive ratings so far). And while we can’t be certain he will continue at this torrid pace, he’s been a top 15 type player over the last year and a half, and there isn’t much to suggest regression.