Players · C · DH · 2024
Matt Carpenter
- Age
- 39
- B/T
- L/R
- Height
- 6' 4"
- Weight
- 224 lb
- Number
- #24
- Born
- November 26, 1985 in Galveston, TX, United States
- MLB debut
- June 4, 2011
- Drafted
- 2009, round 13
- College
- Texas Christian
- High school
- Lawrence E. Elkins
- Salary, 2024
- $5.5M
- dbWAR
- 22.5 11 season(s)
- PA
- 157
- AVG
- .234
- OBP
- .314
- SLG
- .372
- wRC+
- 96 100 = avg
Matt Carpenter was a designated hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2024 he hit 4 home runs and knocked in 15 RBIs, notching 32 hits across 157 plate appearances in 58 games. His batting average was .234, 4.0% lower than the league average of .243. He reached base at a .314 clip and slugged .372, for an OPS of .686, 3.5% lower than the league mark of .711 — 9th of 15 on his team, and 241st of 455 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 84.7 mph off the bat, hit 29.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.0% of them and made contact on 71.1% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 96 wRC+ puts his offence 4% below average. That comes to 0.0 dbWAR — -0.9 runs with the bat, +0.1 for the ballpark, -1.1 on the bases, +0.7 on double plays, -3.4 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.
League context
Percentile among qualified batters, 2024.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2024. These terms sum to +0.2 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
WAR by season
Batting
Standard and advanced, by season.
| Trend | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | STL | 58 | 157 | 32 | 4 | 15 | 0 | 15 | 51 | .234 | .314 | .372 | .139 | .333 | 9.6% | 32.5% | .305 | -0.9 | 96 | 0.0 | |
| 2023 | SD | 75 | 237 | 33 | 5 | 31 | 1 | 41 | 67 | .176 | .322 | .319 | .144 | .231 | 17.3% | 28.3% | .295 | -4.9 | 85 | -0.2 | |
| 2022 | NYY | 47 | 154 | 39 | 15 | 37 | 0 | 19 | 35 | .305 | .412 | .727 | .422 | .304 | 12.3% | 22.7% | .475 | +20.2 | 215 | 2.4 | |
| 2021 | STL | 127 | 249 | 35 | 3 | 21 | 2 | 35 | 77 | .169 | .305 | .275 | .106 | .250 | 14.1% | 30.9% | .274 | -9.0 | 74 | -0.2 | |
| 2020 | STL | 50 | 169 | 26 | 4 | 24 | 0 | 23 | 48 | .186 | .325 | .314 | .129 | .250 | 13.6% | 28.4% | .296 | -3.7 | 83 | 0.1 | |
| 2019 | STL | 129 | 492 | 94 | 15 | 46 | 6 | 63 | 129 | .226 | .334 | .392 | .166 | .285 | 12.8% | 26.2% | .318 | -1.8 | 100 | 1.5 | |
| 2018 | STL | 156 | 677 | 145 | 36 | 81 | 4 | 102 | 158 | .257 | .374 | .523 | .266 | .291 | 15.1% | 23.3% | .380 | +33.8 | 146 | 5.3 | |
| 2017 | STL | 144 | 622 | 120 | 23 | 69 | 2 | 109 | 125 | .241 | .384 | .451 | .209 | .274 | 17.5% | 20.1% | .366 | +21.6 | 133 | 3.4 | |
| 2016 | STL | 129 | 566 | 128 | 21 | 68 | 0 | 81 | 108 | .271 | .380 | .505 | .235 | .307 | 14.3% | 19.1% | .380 | +26.4 | 143 | 4.2 | |
| 2015 | STL | 154 | 665 | 156 | 28 | 84 | 4 | 81 | 151 | .272 | .365 | .505 | .233 | .321 | 12.2% | 22.7% | .378 | +32.1 | 146 | 5.9 |
Pitching
Standard and advanced, by season.
| Trend | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | STL | 1 | 0 | 1.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 5.42 | 1.50 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 | 127 | -0.0 | — |
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 19 | 17 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 5 | .294 | .368 | .294 | .310 | 26.3% |
| vs RHP | 138 | 120 | 27 | 4 | 14 | 46 | .225 | .307 | .383 | .305 | 33.3% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2024.
Loading 88 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 86 tracked batted balls in 2024. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 7.0% 6 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 84.7 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 106.5 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 29.1% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 48.8% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 23.2° average
A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.
Hot and cold zones
Batting average by pitch location, 2024.
Situational hitting
How Matt Carpenter hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 157 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .234 | .314 | .372 | .305 |
| Bases empty | 85 | 76 | 19 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 24 | .250 | .329 | .395 | .322 |
| Runner on first | 32 | 29 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 12 | .241 | .313 | .517 | .356 |
| Runners on | 72 | 61 | 13 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 27 | .213 | .296 | .344 | .285 |
| RISP | 40 | 32 | 6 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 15 | .188 | .282 | .188 | .228 |
Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2024.
Pitch arsenal
What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.
| Changeup | 19 | 57.4 | 1,559 | 42.1% | 0.0% | 3 | — | — |
Head to head
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Similar players
Nearest 2024 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.
wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.