Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

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GeddyWrox
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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by GeddyWrox »

This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.

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Famous Mortimer
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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by Famous Mortimer »

The x-series of stats are pretty much only used to describe bad / under-performing players, because reality is only useful when it agrees with you. I assume Carp will improve a little, because it would be almost impossible for him to get any worse, but at some point you have to stop blaming luck and start blaming what the person is doing.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by Popeye_Card »

I blame the opposing fielders for being in the right places to catch the ball, and the opposing pitchers who strike him out.

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MinorLeagueGuy
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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

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GeddyWrox wrote:
April 23 21, 11:52 am
This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.
This is talked about ad nauseum in the audio portion of game broadcasts; The hitter Matt Carpenter used to be. The only viable excuse, now that its been YEARS of sunk cost, is that he is awful at making the necessary adjustments. Even the small adjustments, he is not making. He traded contact for launch angle years ago. He sold his soul to the devil of modern stats. It was rumored a handful of years ago that the change in his swing came from FO suggestions that he turn the doubles into homeruns. So he came into camp with a new approach right about the time he got this extension.

All this talk of failing and flailing at the plate, is over shadowing the fact that he was never a great defender and he's only gotten worse there, too. We are making concessions all over the field, to justify his large salary..

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GeddyWrox
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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by GeddyWrox »

MinorLeagueGuy wrote:
April 23 21, 1:47 pm
GeddyWrox wrote:
April 23 21, 11:52 am
This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.
This is talked about ad nauseum in the audio portion of game broadcasts; The hitter Matt Carpenter used to be. The only viable excuse, now that its been YEARS of sunk cost, is that he is awful at making the necessary adjustments. Even the small adjustments, he is not making. He traded contact for launch angle years ago. He sold his soul to the devil of modern stats. It was rumored a handful of years ago that the change in his swing came from FO suggestions that he turn the doubles into homeruns. So he came into camp with a new approach right about the time he got this extension.

All this talk of failing and flailing at the plate, is over shadowing the fact that he was never a great defender and he's only gotten worse there, too. We are making concessions all over the field, to justify his large salary..
Right. Go to him and say "Go back to what got you here, or you're sitting." Ideally he would've done this over the winter. But it is what it is now. Clearly the current approach is flawed (for him) at this point.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

GeddyWrox wrote:
April 23 21, 11:52 am
This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.
So basically Jon Jay with even less speed? Not sure that is really worth more than what a AAA guy called up could give us.

Ichiro was ass the last five years of his career.
Last edited by Big Amoco Sign on April 23 21, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by MinorLeagueGuy »

The irony here, is that were he to be traded/released/DFA'd and find a home with another team, he would most certainly make wholesale changes to his approach in the batters box. But failure and complacency with your home/original club doesnt push the player to do the "soul searching" necessary for revamping your career as a hitter. Everybody involved needs to turn the page on this chapter and move on.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by MinorLeagueGuy »

Big Amoco Sign wrote:
April 23 21, 1:54 pm
GeddyWrox wrote:
April 23 21, 11:52 am
This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.
So basically Jon Jay with even less speed? Not sure that is really worth more than what a AAA guy called up could give us.
But it would be more valuable than what he's given us so far. He's provided ZERO value right now. Any value is better than that.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by GeddyWrox »

Big Amoco Sign wrote:
April 23 21, 1:54 pm
GeddyWrox wrote:
April 23 21, 11:52 am
This might be crazy, but since he is probably never going to be a 30+ homer guy again, what if he went with a more Ichiro-esque approach. Concentrate less on ultra-hard hit balls and elevated launch angles, and more on spraying line drives to all fields. He has the eye. We could use an OBP machine at the top.
So basically Jon Jay with even less speed? Not sure that is really worth more than what a AAA guy called up could give us.
My assumption / hope would be that his supposedly superior batting eye would lead to an OBP that would be well above AAA replacement level. But he doesn't seem keen on changing approach again this late in his career, so it's mostly moot speculation anyway.

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Re: Matt Carpenter, Cards reach 2-year extension

Post by haltz »

So I was pretty curious what the remaining factors contributing to fly ball distance are once you have launch angle and exit velocity. It turns out that atmospheric conditions don't really explain it as you see the same variation in samples of Tropicana Field. It has a lot to do with backspin and sidespin and spray angle, as well as variations on drag coefficients among baseballs.
Summary
So the question posed back in 2013 has finally been answered quantitatively. For a given exit velocity and launch angle, the fly ball distance is determined up to a standard deviation of 16.8 feet. With the benefit of trajectory and spin information from Statcast, it is now possible to examine the parameters that lead to that variation. Once the spray angle is taken into account, the remaining variation of 11 feet comes from four different sources, in roughly equal contributions:

Variation of backspin from mean value
Variation of sidespin from mean value
Ball-to-ball variation in drag
Measurement noise
It's interesting to note that all fly balls this year are traveling about 5' less than in the last couple of years on average.

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