I will begin my 30 team, 2013 preview next week (I figure new week, fresh, blah blah), so today, I will begin on some fantasy sleepers for the year. Hopefully, I will do position by position before the season starts, so right now, let's focus on some individual players. Today, we will take a look at Matt Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals. Carpenter played a super-sub role for the Cardinals in 2012, mostly at first base when Allen Craig was out and at third base for David Freese. But, Craig (clearly) established himself at first this past season and Freese stayed healthy, so what does manager Mike Matheny do? Tell Carpenter to learn a new position: second base.
Carpenter has been hard at work learning the position, and since he has more pop than Daniel Descalso, and Skip Schumaker is now in LA, he has a legitimate shot at the everyday job. It only matters to the fantasy owner what he'll produce offensively, so let's look at some numbers. In 114 games last year, Carpenter registered a .294/.365/.463 line - a very respectable .828 OPS. I feel that power over a whole season of everyday play will up Carpenter's slugging percentage. His 'regular' stat line for you old school geeks like me - .294, 6 HR, 46 RBI. Carpenter totaled 87 hits in 296 appearances with a 34-63 BB/K ratio. To predict Carpenter over a whole season, it's fairly simple: let's double his plate appearances, which will be equivalent to a full season as a starter. Extrapolating the data to 600 AB's puts Carpenter at a .294/12 HR/93 RBI line. Carpenter's power should be more constant over the season - I predict closer to 20 HR. Carpenter is working hard to move to 2B to play everyday. His bat is what needs to get into the line-up: Matheny will find a way. Carpenter will be the Allen Craig of 2013.
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