A veteran of 14 MLB seasons, Carpenter was open to continuing his career in 2025 as recently as this past September. That was following a season with the Cardinals where he battled injuries and struck out at a 32.5 percent clip but still produced a roughly average 95 wRC+ across 157 plate appearances in a part-time role. That sort of production was enough to make Carpenter a solid bench piece, though with the Cardinals’ pivot toward providing young players more opportunities this year, a reunion between the 39-year-old and his longtime club wasn’t in the cards.
As Carpenter mentioned, he was wearing Cardinal red for most of his career. The Cards selected him in the 13th round of the 2009 draft. He made it to the big leagues in 2011, the year of the club’s most recent World Series win, but he was a footnote in that season. He was selected to the roster in June and optioned back to the minors after a seven-game cup of coffee.
His major league career began in earnest in 2012. As a 26-year-old rookie that year, Carpenter took to hitting in the majors almost right away. He hit an impressive .294/.365/.463 in 114 games while splitting time between first base, second base, third base, and both outfield corners. That show of versatility was enough to earn Carpenter a sixth-place finish in Rookie of the Year voting despite the fact that he had yet to generate the type of power he would later in his career, clubbing just six homers in 340 trips to the plate. He also hit .286/.412/.571 in playoff games, though the Cards were felled by the Giants in the NLCS.
He took a step forward in 2013 and had arguably his best season. He almost doubled his power output, getting to 11 home runs. He walked at a 10 percent clip and only struck out 13.7 percent of the time. That led to a .318/.392/.481 slash and 146 wRC+. He was selected to the All-Star team for the first time. FanGraphs credits him with 7.2 wins above replacement for that season, his personal best by a good margin. He finished fourth in National League Most Valuable Player voting. Carpenter didn’t perform especially well in the postseason that year, hitting .217/.263/.290, but the Cards made it as far as the World Series, losing to the Red Sox in six games.
The Cards then locked him up on an extension which would pay him $52M over the 2014 to 2019 seasons and keep him in St. Louis into his mid-30s. Over the rest of the decade, his production shifted slightly, with a bit more power but a bit less on-base ability. The aggregate was roughly similar though, making him a very useful player as he bounced around the infield. From 2015-18, he hit between 21 and 36 home runs in each season, totaling 108 long balls in that four-year stretch. He slashed a combined .260/.376/.497 for that span, leading to a 135 wRC+.
In April of 2019, as Carpenter was entering the final guaranteed year of his deal, he and the Cards agreed to another extension. This one would pay him $39M over the 2020 and 2021 seasons. However, that ultimately proved to be a misstep for the club, as Carpenter’s production declined over those next few years. His wRC+ finished at 96 in 2019, then 85 in the shortened 2020 campaign, before going all the way down to 68 in 2021.
The Cards could have retained Carpenter for 2022 via an $18.5M club option, but with his declining results, the $2M buyout was the easy call. That sent him to free agency for the first time in his career, ahead of his age-36 season.
