Carlos Correa’s 2016 Season

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This is the exit interview post for one of our favorite players in the big leagues, and one of our most important fantasy keepers on one of our most important fantasy teams.

Carlos Correa burst on the scene with a 2015 that saw him .279/.345/.512 with 22 home runs, 68 RBI and 14 steals in just 99 games. His line drive % was 22.4, his fWAR 3.4; the sky seemed the limit and many were predicting him to win the American League MVP award in 2016 for an Astros team that would roll to the World Series.

And then reality happened – the reality that baseball is a hard game and the Astros are probably just a year or so too young – and Correa showed that he was still pretty dang good at baseball.

His 2016 featured a slash line of .274/.361/.451 in 153 games. He homered 20 times and knocked in 96 while stealing 13 bags. His fWAR rose to 4.9 while his strikeout percentage also took an upward turn from 18.1% to 21.1%. His line drive rate was 22.4% again on the nose.

Advanced batting metrics show that he had some trouble with the curveball but improved on the fastball. It’s speculated that he played a good part of the season banged up, limping to the finish line with a balky shoulder.

Correa will not be 23 until next September, so the sky is still absolutely the limit. Correa is still a five category stud, and the Astros still play at Minute Maid which is friendly to hitters. They figure to have a nice lineup over the next several seasons, and they’ll undoubtedly only get better with some luck in the health department and another winter of seasoning across a lot of their young roster.

We said on our podcast before the 2016 season started that Correa was the one guy we couldn’t wait to watch. As winter approaches, and we’re down to two teams left in the postseason; he’s probably the number one guy we can’t wait to see take the field in April of 2017.