Matt Carpenter Has Career 2015, But Can He Repeat?

The breakout season the baseball world waited for from Matt Carpenter in 2014 appears to have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and showed up last season instead. He finished 2015 hitting .272 with 28 home runs, 84 RBI and 102 runs.

The power that went missing came back in a big way as he more than doubled his previous career high in homers, which also allowed him to set a new personal RBI record with 84. If his power drops back down into the low teens, or worse, he will be hard-pressed to prove profitable in regards to his draft position. With 11 of Adams' home runs last year just clearing the wall according to ESPN's Home Run Tracker, and all of the additional strikeouts that came with his power surge, those two factors could come back to haunt him fiercely in 2016. That would be a worst-case scenario, and on paper, Carpenter looks like a decent bet to continue producing near his 2015 levels. But until we see him put together another similar season, draft with slight trepidation.