So now that we have some player rankings from the big guys over at Yahoo and ESPN finally out, I get to delve a bit harder into the bargain bin to see if we can find, and it brings up an interesting name: Chris Carter. No, not that Cris Carter. That’s football silly! Of course, I can understand your confusion seeing as I’m the main writer for Razzball Fantasy Football, but you’re not here for my shameless self-promoting, you’re here for some fantasy baseball knowledge. So let’s take a look at Carter and his current 364 rank at Yahoo to see if we have a discount on our hands for 2013 fantasy baseball…
In order to review this Chris, I’d like to review another Chris. This Chris is of the Davis variety and I told you a bit about him last year in my Deep League Thoughts post for 1st basemen. Now just read all of that about Davis and pretend I said it about Carter. Boom! Analysis done…good night folks! Ok, I’m only half kidding. Really, Carter has almost the same flaws that had held Davis back from success in the past, and I won’t be the first one to tell you Davis got really lucky with an average above .250 in 2012. As I said in that deep league thoughts blurb ‘Look for 25 HRs, a crap-ton of K’s and don’t expect an average above .250’. I think I can say the same thing about Carter if he’s given a starting job and runs with it in 2013. The one thing he does do a bit better than Davis is take a walk as his career 12.5% BB rate shows, but the reality is there were 5 guys last year who met the minimum qualifying PA to count who had over a 30% strikeout rate. Of them, only Davis had an average above .250, so Carter’s career 32.3% K-rate is surely going dip your AVG. The plus side to this average issue? Of those 5 guys I’m referring to, 3 of them hit 30 or more home runs. I don’t know if you know this or not, but HRs are kind of a big deal. Like, no one hits them anymore. Fun fact, there were only 26 guys with 30 or more HRs last year. If that sounds silly and arbitrary to point out, zoom back to 2001 when there were 40 guys who did it and most of them with an * next to their name. YOU know what I’m sayin…so in reviewing Carter’s current low asking price in drafts, he’s well worth the ticket to see if you can cash in on some late round power. At worst, he scores you a few touchdowns and reminds you of Chris Berman…wait, what?
