Carter currently has the 6th highest slugging percentage in the AL, and 11th in all of baseball. Not 6th highest during his hot streak, but for the season. His Slugging is higher than, among others . . . Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera I know slugging percentage is one "picked out" category, but damn His OPS is 13th in the AL, 13th, for the year If this guy was hitting in the middle of a legit lineup, his runs/rbi numbers would be close to the top of baseball also.
He's also 3rd in HRs (4th in the majors). Being only 3 behind the other guys, he has a legit chance at the HR title.
Nothing short of a remarkable turn around. Half the battle though was just getting to be more patient at the plate.
There is a lot of confirmation bias involved with Carter, numbers can be interpreted however you want to. A .770 OPS this day and age really isn't a bad number at all. When he was struggling it was really easy to blow that number off. Now his OPS over the last 3 seasons have been .864/.770/.826. An .808 average, with .770 as a floor looks pretty damn good. Combine that with the eyeball test, he isn't just getting "lucky" his approach has changed and he is putting the ball in play at a higher clip over this stretch. This is a hot stretch though, you have to add that in. His HR rate and BABIP over this stretch are unsustainable, but his numbers for the season overall are sustainable.
Honestly though, I don't think I am ready to call Carter anything yet? This new approach has seemed to really take his game to the next level. Incredible.
Baseball is a game of adjustments. Pitchers will exploit Carters weakness. So how Carter does againt the adjustment pitchers will use on him is important. Some players make necessary adjustments to their approach. Others simply cant keep up with the MLB pitchers continuos modifications towards hitters. I am not quite ready to call Carter a cornerstone, but it is fun watching. On a side note, Altuve is stellar. I am starting to get convinced he is going to have staying power.
The .864 is from 260 PAs, though - it's a small sample size (67 games; his current hot streak covers 34 games). I don't think Chris Carter is ever going to post a .350 OB% over the course of an entire season. And that remains the big concern with him: what can he do when he's not blasting HRs? Even during this stretch, he's not walking much (11 since July 1), which is not good and likely an indicator he won't be able to sustain.
As an aside, last night's game was the first 0-4 game Carter has had in his major league career without striking out.
Let's say, hypothetically, this isn't a streak and it is that he's something close to this player. Don't you think his walk rate will go up naturally? It doesn't appear opposing teams are convinced and are still pitching to him. At some point, if this continues, he'll see more pitches out of the zone and more IBBs...especially as we play more teams in the playoff race that can't afford losses (A's, Angels, Mariners, Yankees & Indians).
Read yesterday that Javier Baez has struck out 4 times in a game 3 times already....and they said that Cal Ripken also did that . . .but Cal did it in his career!
Carter is a good baseball player if you're a bad mlb team. He can succeed against bad pitching but would you ever want this guy up in the playoffs with runners on the base? I wouldn't. Give me a contact hitter.
Not sure how he underachieved, he was one of the most badarse CF'ers I've ever seen (the late 80's with Cincy he just wrecked the Astros) , he had a short run of brilliance that turned into an 18 year career.
