When the Brewers traded for CC Sabathia and the Cubs traded for Rich Harden people were waiting for the Cardinals to make a move to answer. That move never came, but the front office explained that the returns of Mark Mulder and Chris Carpenter would be like their mid season trade and bolster their staff. After Mulder went down again when Carpenter came back after only a little more than a year after Tommy John surgery people were obviously sceptical but Carpenter has pitched well in his first two starts despite being a little erratic with his control. The real question is does Carpenter have the stuff that made him a Cy Young pitcher or has the surgery sapped him of some of stuff? Here is a look at his movement on his pitches.

Let's break these down one by one. Carpenter's fastball is actually a sinker though it isn't like Brandon Webb or Derek Lowe's sinker. Carpenter's sinker still has nearly 6 inches of vertical movement where Webb, for instance, actually produces a slight vertical drop. So it isn't the pure sink that Carpenter relies on but what Carpenter has going for him is he throws the pitch at nearly 92 MPH on average which is very high for sinkers and he produces nearly ten inches of vertical movement boring in on a right handed batter. That inward movement produces a ton of jam jobs and broken bats as I am sure you are aware of. His combination of velocity, inward movement, and some sink is very unique for a pitcher which is something else that really helps.

Carpenter backs that up with a cutter to right handed batters and a change up to left handed batters. The cutter is truly an amazing pitch for him. He throws it about 88 MPH and it has less than an inch of vertical movement less than his sinker. This means the pitch is completely in the same vertical plane as his sinker until it breaks away from a right handed batter at the last second. It is nearly impossible to detect a difference between these pitches so right handed batters are basically never hitting the ball of the sweet spot of the bat.

Carpenter's change up is a straight change up which means it mimics his fastball movement almost exactly. The only difference is the eight MPH speed differential. This too, confuses hitters because it is impossible to pick up the pitch because the spins are identical. Carpenter has yet to throw a change up to right handed batters and I wouldn't expect to see too many as the season goes on. The circle change tends to break down so it is easier to keep down in the zone for most pitchers and you don't want to be throwing a 86 MPH cookie middle in to a major league batter.

Carpenter's curve is kind of slurvy as you would expect from his large horizontal movement on his sinker. Many sinkerballers will add a slider to go with their sinkers but Carpenter's cutter is so effective that a curve is almost certainly going to be better for him than a slider anyway. Despite the relatively large horizontal movement for a curve he still gets better than league average vertical break which is really amazing. He will throw his curve to both right and left handed batters and it is a very effective strikeout pitch for him. He also has been throwing a curve on 0-1 a lot in the first two games so look for that Sunday against the Cubs when he gets ahead in the count.

Carpenter's stamina isn't back yet but it is getting better. He threw almost 70 pitches in his last start and soon should be back to a level where he should be able to go relatively deep into games. Because of the great movement he has on his pitches he can afford to "pitch to contact" because that contact is going to be rather weak most of the time.

The moral of the story is it looks like Carpenter is indeed back and likely will help his Cardinals nearly as much as Sabathia helped the Brewers (Harden will help the Cubs less in the regular season because improving them fron a 94 to 96 win team will not likely change their results). If I were in a fantasy league and he was available I would snap him up right away or trade for him if he was cheap. I probably would stash him on the bench for his next start against the Cubs as he probably will only throw about 75-80 pitches and the Cubs are a very patient team so it is less likely for him to come out with a win but I'd throw him into the lineup afterwards.

Josh Kalk will work for a stalker sport. He can be reached at josh@drivelinemechanics.com