Matt Carpenter: VEB 2016 Projections

Two years ago, Site Manager Ben Humphrey asked readers to provide predictions for Cardinals baseball players. Last year, he renewed that request, and although Ben is in blogger retirement, we at VEB are re-renewing the request to predict how the Cardinals will do.

We will not get to every player on the 40-man roster, but we will get to most. There will not be a defined order for the players, but players most assured of playing time will go first so we can let some of Spring Training play out. We will ask for standard stats. For hitters: Plate Appearances, Home Runs, RBI (gasp!), Runs, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, and WAR. As trying to figure wOBA on is very difficult, we will use a rough approximation based on OBP and SLG ((1.7*OBP+SLG)/3). For pitchers: Starts, Games, Innings Pitched, K/9, BB/9, ERA, FIP, WAR, and Saves.

We will start things off this year with Matt Carpenter. The Cardinals third baseman put up another great year last season, leading the team in home runs. Here are last year's stats:

Ben Markham discussed Carpenter's projections, and Joe Schwarz just did great work breaking down Carpenter's strikeouts. Carpenter is 30 and had a bit of a slump last season after being sidelined for exhaustion. The exhaustion is unlikely to factor in this season, but Carpenter should get plenty of playing time, likely once again at leadoff, although a move down in the order would create some RBI opportunities. While I will not post the projections from Steamer and ZiPS that are available at FanGraphs in case some of you would rather go in blind or believe it is cheating (it's not), but I will link to his player page at FanGraphs in case you feel like it would be of some assistance (it will). Cardinals ZiPS can be found here.

What say you?

Thank you for your help. Results will be posted after all players have been completed.