Cold Hard Sports: Deciphering Matt Carpenter’s Immense Value to the St. Louis Cardinals
The website FanGraphs, the gold standard for online baseball analytics, tracks every ball that is hit in every Major League game and classifies it as being either hard, medium or soft contact. Also on the site, one can sort hitters by how often they hit the ball in each classification.
Guess who leads all of baseball in hard-hit percentage? It’s not Mike Trout,Bryce Harper, Josh Donaldson or anyone else you would probably think.
It’s underrated third baseman Matt Carpenter.
The 30-year-old infielder was sent to the 15-day Disabled List after he suffered a strained oblique on Wednesday. Oblique injuries are tricky, and manager Mike Matheny made it clear that his rehab can’t be rushed.
“Carp’s going to be careful with this,†Matheny told reporters. “It’s going to take those two weeks at the very minimum.â€
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