FanPost

Chris Carter 2015 Outlook: Size is Everything?

Bob Levey

If you clicked this article, and you're not really into reading, Chris Carter owners and fans, abandon ship while there is still time.

So this year in early June, I was starring in the mirror wondering what I had done so wrong in life to deserve the fate that my fantasy team was suffering. I had managed to draft the following players with the round assignments next to them.

1 Prince Fielder (11th overall)

2 David Wright (14th overall)

7 Mike Minor

9 Brandon Belt

10 Doug Fister

11 Danny Salazar

12 Bryce Harper (keeper held at value)

13 Patrick Corbin

14 Javier Baez

15 John Axford

16 Neftali Feliz

18 Nate Jones

21 Michael Pineda

22 Oswaldo Arcia

26 Carlos Quentin

There was blood everywhere and I didn't know what to do anymore. I had begun selling my team off for parts for next year, and had to get some band-aids so I could have a full starting squad. So on June 12th (close to a month before the all-star break) I said, screw it, I'll add Chris Carter, the bane of my existence.

Chris Carter clearly was tired of my hatred, and did something about it from basically the moment he was added to my team. He hit 25 home runs from that day forward. He was awesome, his play was unreal, his second half was ruthian, and he literally did everything I could have asked for and more.

Here's the quick and dirty breakdown of his first and second half in 2014:

1st half: 205/281/465, 33 R, 19 HR, 40RBI, 0 SB, 237 Babip

2nd half: 252/338/521 35 R, 18HR, 48 RBI, 5 SB, 301 Babip

So despite a huge jump in BA, he didn't really hit for anymore power than the first half, than the second, and he didn't experience any real benefit in R or RBI despite a 47 point jump in BA and a 57 point jump in his OBP. I didn't care, I thought it was love at first sight. During the season, I ignored things like this since production was production, and my team was filled with guys who were getting 0 ABs while on the DL, so who was I to split hairs over Chris Carters unusual statistical breakdown.

But the season is done, and it's time to start looking at future value. Lets ignore that he only has 14 games at 1B, and 6 in LF so he's a DH only in most ESPN leagues, and focus on the actual production of the bat itself. Here are a few facts about Chris Carter that will probably not change much on your perception of him, but interesting things you'd probably like to know:

1. Chris Carter is enormous, he's listed at 6'5" 250lbs, to put that in perspective, Frank Thomas was listed at 6'5" 240lbs according to baseball reference.

2. Chris Carter can hit gargantuan homers, 15 of his 37 homers this year had their true distance measured at 400+ by ESPN.

3. Chris Carter has no idea what's going on at the plate and is just hacking while trying to get that next 400 foot homer when hot or cold.

Now that last part may have seemed a little harsh, but after expressing so many good feelings about Carter in the last 500 words, its time to start looking at the truth. Myself, and many others basically ignored Carter in the first half while he was downright awful, as we was drafted 218th overall in ESPN, so a very expendable piece in most leagues. After fully correcting the ship in the second half, he still had a 31.8% K rate, and a 9.8% walk rate, and if anyone was interested he only went from 32.7% to 30.9% K rate. The guy had a very hard time putting the ball in play, no matter where it was thrown, here are his contact rates below seen from the hitters perspective. The link I provided gives a better understanding.

Chris Carters fangraphs contact rates with color

33 %

6

40 %

10

0 %

2

100 %

1

100 %

3

33 %

6

50 %

10

43 %

7

60 %

5

0 %

1

50 %

2

33 %

3

42 %

12

54 %

13

50 %

16

53 %

19

78 %

9

33 %

6

33 %

3

86 %

7

81 %

16

72 %

25

88 %

34

71 %

28

73 %

22

50 %

20

67 %

9

50 %

10

100 %

7

89 %

18

93 %

30

90 %

41

69 %

36

83 %

40

74 %

19

56 %

9

36 %

11

38 %

13

100 %

16

88 %

25

86 %

37

85 %

41

80 %

44

55 %

22

88 %

8

40 %

10

81 %

16

89 %

19

86 %

28

76 %

34

86 %

37

63 %

24

33 %

3

40 %

5

57 %

7

43 %

14

71 %

17

65 %

31

50 %

32

29 %

14

0 %

2

67 %

3

0 %

2

20 %

5

60 %

10

25 %

8

27 %

11

0 %

8

0 %

7

0 %

8

0 %

15

0 %

30

He also is a true one tool guy, who isn't trying to do us fantasy players any favors, and spread the wealth around to other statistics. Here's his scouting report courtesy of MLB Scouting Reports.com written in 2013.

Batting: 40

Speed: 30

Arm: 40

Power: 70

Defense: 40

Now for the people that watch Carter frequently, you may have a few questions on your mind, which I'm probably about to answer. First question: his babip was so low in the first half, it was bound for correction, he's better now.

Chris Carter has a 283 Babip, that's over 1500 PA's, so it's fair to say this is his baseline, so his 267 this year was low, but isn't that low for him. Also 51.4% of the balls he manages to put in play are in the air, and he had a hilariously high 16% IFFB rate last year. Fly balls are generally easy outs, and infield flies are even easier, so this is a major problem for his future batting average and babip. Then he pairs those pop ups and fly balls with a 27.1% ground ball rate. Grounders become base hits far more frequently than fly balls, so this rate is too low to do Carter any favors. Also when I looked at his spray chart on Fangraphs, which I've had difficultly showing here, it showed he only hit 4 grounders to the right side this year. Teams are going to start stuffing their infielders on the left side of the field to wait for Carter to hit it to them.

Chris Carter spray chart

Second Question: his line drive rate was ok, how can you not think he has more hits in his future? Answer: His line drive rate is a solid 21.6%, but this isn't enough to save him from the rest of his poor contact and astronomical number of whiffs. He simply isn't good at hitting the ball despite his ability to hit it far.

The last thing that truly surprised me was that when I went to see the distance his homers and fly balls were traveling at baseball heat maps, they were only flying 288.98 ft. This is a good distance, but still has him only ranked 70th behind Christian Yelich, which left me realizing that Carter wasn't using his huge power effectively. Yelich is a good hitter, but nobody with 70 grade power should be hitting the ball with less authority than Yelich.

One last statistic that baseball heat maps provides is expected home runs, and the difference between that number and their actually home run total. They don't calculate this instantaneously, so at the time of Carter's 34th homer, he had 37 this year, he had a 21.79 expected homer total. The difference of 12.2 had him as the luckiest home run hitter in baseball this year ahead of Mike Trout who had a difference of 8.15, and Marlon Byrd whose 5.75 difference was third in the MLB.

The pro Carter fantasy baseball fan will obviously note his huge power, and his cozy home park to hit in (8th best park for homers in 2014), and his ability to hit the ball to all fields (for those who dig deeper), and he's coming off a 37 homer year, how bad can it get (2014 Chris Davis owner sheds single tear)? The anti-Carter argument is that while the Astros have a bright offensive future ahead of them, as the team is literally full of top prospects, they were still horrible this year, they had the worst team batting average 242, and the most strike outs 1442 in the AL, which lead to only 88 RBI in a 37 homer year. He doesn't put the ball in play enough, nor does he take enough walks to justify his whiffs. His terrible batted ball profile won't be conducive to long-term success.

So if you enjoyed the fruits of Carters labor this year, cherish it, and realize that you just had a guy in his career year. It was wonderful, but it isn't going to happen unless a radically different approach is implemented, and given his limited skill set, this is not likely. Long story short, don't be the guy who reads too much into the major sites projections, the 37 homers already happened, they probably aren't happening again.

Home Run location with Minute Maid Park overlay

Works Cited:

http://mlbscoutingreports.com/2013/03/27/chris-carter-45/

http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/distanceleader.php

http://www.hittrackeronline.com/detail.php?id=2014_779&type=hitter&sortm=true_dist&sort=desc

http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=9911&position=1B/DH&season=2014