Matt Carpenter (1B, STL) - 2018 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers & Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Target ~100

CURRENT ADP: 175

ANALYSIS: St. Louis Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter will head into the 2018 season hoping to play injury-free. He had a decent 2017 season, slashing .241/.384/.451 with 23 home runs and 69 RBI. Carpenter has always been a better asset in OBP leagues, but had not been a liability in batting average leagues until last season.

Even though Carpenter fared noticeably better in the first spot in the batting order last season, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has already said he is thinking about batting Carpenter third in 2018. As long as his shoulder is healthy, Carpenter should be able to bounce back this coming season and might be had at a relative bargain price in fantasy drafts. His positional versatility makes him somewhat more valuable than his numbers can show alone.

While Carpenter's batting average in 2017 was unimpressive, his high OBP will put him in a good place to score runs in front of Marcell Ozuna and his solid slugging percentage will help him knock in Dexter Fowler and Tommy Pham. The 75 spot gap between his ranking and ADP shows that you can get him for a massive bargain.