Thoughts on Carl Crawford

by John Sickels on Oct 17, 2005 1:18 PM EDT in News Comment 28 comments

Random Thoughts on Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford was drafted in the second round in 1999, out of high school in Texas. He was considered to be one of the best pure athletes in the draft class, but fell to the second round due to the fact that he was rather raw in baseball, plus he had a basketball scholarship to UCLA and a football scholarship to Nebraska on the table. The D-Rays got his name on a contract, and he adjusted to pro ball quickly, hitting .319/.350/.404 with 17 steals in 60 games in the Appalachian League. His plate discipline was shaky, but scouts were very impressed with him.

The following season, he hit .301/.342/.410 with 55 steals in 64 attempts for Charleston in the Sally League. His plate discipline was weak, but you had to be impressed with his speed. I wrote that he "has a chance to be something special, but must be handled cautiously." He got a B- in the '01 book.

The D-Rays bumped Crawford up to Double-A in 2001. I thought this promotion was too aggressive. . .he was still just 19 years old and still raw. . .and felt it would backfire. It didn't quite backfire, but his production did drop off, down to .274/.323/.352 with 36 steals but 20 caught stealing, the worst performance of his career thus far. Given his age-relative-to-league he was still very intriguing, and I kept him at Grade B- heading into '02. His potential was obviously higher than that, at least Grade B and probably B+, but I was concerned that he was being pushed too fast, sort of like Corey Patterson.

Crawford began '02 in Triple-A, hitting .297/.335/.456 with 26 steals in 85 games. His power spiked, with a SLG increase of over 100 points compared to 2001. Promoted to Tampa in the second half, he hit .259/.290/.371 for the D-Rays in 63 games. Poor performance in absolute terms, but not that bad considering he was just 20 years old.

Crawford now has three full seasons in the majors, and has improved slightly each year. His OPS is on an upward slope: .671 in 2003, .781 in 2004, .800 in 2005. He's maintained his speed and is stealing bases at a better success percentage. He set career-highs in homers and doubles this year. Although his walk rate remains poor, his strikeout rate has dropped.

Where does he go from here? Crawford is just 24, and if he continues to gradually improve at the current rate, he'd be an extremely impressive player by the time he's 27.
But will that happen?

Here are some players similar to Crawford, based on a combination of Bill James' Sim Score method, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA method, and my own research into comparable players.

Claudell Washington
Jose Cardenal
Devon White
Willie Davis
Lloyd Moseby
Garry Maddox
Mickey Rivers

All good players. As you can see, Crawford is something of a throwback to a style of play that was more common in the 60s, 70s and 80s: the speedy outfielder with a slap-and-dash style, pop to the gaps, and occasional power spikes.

If his power develops further, Crawford could end up being better than any of those guys. Will said power develop? Perhaps. His ground ball/fly ball ratio isn't extreme in either direction, and he's certainly strong enough physically, though his swing is still tailored to the line drive. One thing he must do is improve against left-handed pitching. He hit just .244/.293/.326 against lefties this year, compared to .326/.348/.530 against righthanders. That may, or may not, improve with experience.

In any event, even if he stays about as productive as he is now and doesn't get better, he's still a good player, a fine example of how organizations dream of "tools" guys developing. His tools are tremendous, and he's developed the skills to make them meaningful. Further skill development would push him beyond being "good" into being excellent. At this point, if I were the D-Rays, I'd worry less about Crawford developing power, and would have him concentrate on better strike zone judgment. This would raise his OBP and make it less dependent on his batting average, and would get him better pitches to hit, which could increase his power production even without major mechanical changes in his swing. He doesn't have to become a walk machine, but even a marginal improvement in his discipline would go a long way towards making him an outstanding player.

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re

First an error, Crawford is from Houston, Texas, not Bama'.

Crawford has steadily improved each year in the bigs, and is learning on the job in most aspects due to being raw and rushed. Still just 24, he is at the normal age in which tool guys start putting it together. Pinella said they are working hard on his discipline, and I believe discipline is the one trait that can be learned in the bigs. You can't teach Crawford speed, you can't teach someone to be a .300 (they either have it or don't), but you can teach patience at the plate. Its just a matter of time before he gets it. When he does, look out. You will see a huge spike in his numbers. I mean from .300-.330-.410 now, to .330-.380-.470 in the future.

Now, my question is where will it be? I know he signed long term with the Rays, but the Yankees are hot after him? Will he be in Tampa when he hits his stride?

by ScottAZ on Oct 17, 2005 1:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

re:

"I mean from .300-.330-.410 now, to .330-.380-.470 in the future"

Well, he hit .300/.330/.470 last year, so I'd say his prime could look more like .330/.380/.520, possibly even better.

He is so athletic and his power has improved so much, I think he'll hit 25 homers annually in his late 20's, with maybe a 30 homer-40 steal season or two.

If he comes home to Houston he could be a lefty version of Cesar Cedeno.

by Ian Miller on Oct 17, 2005 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

re

I meant a .500 slg%.

He certainly has the ability to hit 20-30 hrs a year. I'm curious to see whether he becomes more of a slugger that hit 25-35 homers a year with a slightly lower OB%, or he becomes a true leadoff guy and sacrifices some power for a high OB%.

Hell, maybe he becomes Barry Bonds 1990-1994 and combines all of the above.

by ScottAZ on Oct 17, 2005 4:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Piniella Said

I guess we'll have to take Lou's word on that one, since Crawford's walk rate actually went down last season...

Who the D-Rays hire as hitting coach might be just as important as who they hire as manager. Bruce Fields did a great job with Brandon Inge in Detroit -- then again, he had a long history with Inge, so that success might not be repeatable.

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 17, 2005 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Rickey!

Lock Rickey Henderson and Carl Crawford in a room together for a week and see what happens.

by Ian Miller on Oct 17, 2005 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bad idea

Crawford will start referring to himself in 3rd person.

by UncleMiltie on Oct 17, 2005 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Inge

Inge had a monster April and a solid May, but this was his post all-star break line: .236/.282/.400

Hard to make Chicken Salad out of Chicken Sh!t.

"If you don't like Torey Lovullo, then you don't like baseball." Sparky Anderson

by natsfan2005 on Oct 17, 2005 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Funny

Isn't that about when Alan Trammell flipped Fields and Kirk Gibson as his hitting/bench coaches...?

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 17, 2005 4:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

texas

texas thing fixed. thanks.

by John Sickels on Oct 17, 2005 1:48 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

no problem

Mistakes like that are easy to do when you follow 500 or so prospects.

by Goodfella on Oct 17, 2005 6:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Speaking of speedy, slap hitting outfielders . . .

What do you think is going to happen to ichiro over the next few years? I know that he has absoloutley no connection to the minors, but I'd like to know what you think. Will his power numbers continue to increase as he loses speed on the bases?

by duder on Oct 17, 2005 1:48 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

ichiro

i kind of think ichiro! will return to form. this year, for whatever reason, his ground balls weren't finding holes, and he compensated by trying to loft the ball more and had career highs in 3Bs and HRs, but his overall game suffered. unless teams are suddenly much smarter about defending him (which i doubt), he'll probably be himself again next year.

by jpahk on Oct 18, 2005 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lofton

I'm surprised Kenny Lofton isn't on the list of comps. I think that if Crawford spends his time focusing on HR's instead of SZJudgement, he'll be the disappointing version of Lofton. If Crawford spends his time making the strike zone adjustments, he'll be the good Lofton that led the league in SB's for multiple years in a row.

In any case, I think the DRays will shift him to CF and trade Baldelli.

by lenred on Oct 17, 2005 1:54 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Love Crawford (as a player)

Great speed, amazing defender, excellent hitter, has good gap power. I see him as a 25 HR/40 SB guy in a couple of years. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins a batting title and picks up a couple of gold gloves. OPS isn't the best way to judge Crawford's value because he's an excellent baserunner and defender. Plate discipline is the only thing keeping him from being an MVP candidate. I would love to see a Crystal Ball on Crawford.

IanCobb- I like the Cesar Cedeno comparison.

by UncleMiltie on Oct 17, 2005 2:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

does he have

bad hands too and will have to be moved to a full time DH? Manos de piedra?

Just kidding.

by So Cal Bob on Oct 17, 2005 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

defense

Again, an almost total disregard for defense with all analysis on offense. While LF is not a hugely important defensive position, defense gets you into the majors, offense keeps you there. Analysts love talking about offense, especially on base, but the current White Sox made it to the World Series emphasizing a strong defensive team. A great defensive player can make it in the big leagues with a .700 OPS.

An outfielder that can prevent 30 hits a season (one good play every 5 games) is equal to about .160 points in OPS (assuming the average hit is a double). 40 hits a season (one good play every 4 games) is worth over .200 OPS points. And when that defensive player manages to hit, well then you have a star.

Looking at the past busts, it seems that many suffer from defensive problems despite great tool sets.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 17, 2005 3:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

defense

This is an important point, and I will talk more about defense in future posts.

by John Sickels on Oct 17, 2005 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not Quite

The 'average hit' isn't worth anywhere near a double... in 2005 the average hit was worth about 1.58 bases.

Not saying you don't have a valid point, but your math is a bit off.

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 17, 2005 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

average hit

I'd say the average "preventable" hit would be even much lower. Almost every home run is completely "unpreventable" and home runs are really driving up the average bases/hit.

"If you don't like Torey Lovullo, then you don't like baseball." Sparky Anderson

by natsfan2005 on Oct 17, 2005 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good Point

Average AL 'inside the park' hit (I didn't bother to dig up actual ITPHR to include): 1.27 bases

Average NL: 1.28 bases

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 17, 2005 7:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

average hit

You are correct if you refer to infield hits. But then you are discounting double plays. The average hit (at least strat wise) to leftfield is a double. Some are singles, many are doubles, some are triples, and some are singles plus errors which are essentially doubles. The worst the defender the more extra bases. Crawford is excellent not only at catching the ball but eliminating errors, robbing homeruns, and turning potential doubles into singles. Compare say Crawford to Gomes in leftfield and Crawford has a much better overall effect. The main problem facing the analyst/sabermetric community is taking into account defense. The outcry over the handling of Upton discounts defense. Upton is not yet a major league player even if he has an OPS of .800 at the major league level.

I think that defense can be taught. Boggs was a horrible defender, was delayed because of his defense, but worked hard to overcome his defensive liability.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 17, 2005 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sorry

Strat cannot be right about that. Only about a third of the total hits in the majors go for extra bases at all, and there just aren't that many infield singles. Take home runs out of the equation, and that figure drops to almost exactly one quarter.

Three out of every four hits that stays in the park is a single. There is just no way the 'average' hit is a double.

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 17, 2005 7:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

strat

First of all strat isn't baseball, you could argue that they are wrong and I have no argument against that.

But I have three counter points. One is that you are not taking into account a fielding play that is scored as a single plus an error which is essentially extra bases. Another is that left fielders make many fewer plays than say a 2b or ss, but have a much higher opportunity for extra bases. And my last point is while there are not that many infield singles, there are many singles that make it to the outfield that an infielder could have stopped while the outfielder has no play.

The strat defense chart only takes into account those fielding chances that the defense can have an effect on. Defense in left may get called on 60 times in a year. The left fielder makes many more defensive plays than that, but strat figures that most plays are beyond the capabilities of the fielder. Many hits cannot be caught (even Crawford gets a single hit to lf), and many routine fly balls are caught by any major leaguer. A guy like Sammy Sosa might make 15 of those plays. A guy like Crawford may make 58 of those plays. When Sammy blows the play the average is a double. I think that this is realistic because most leftfield mishaps result in extra bases. So when I say that the average is a double, I am not saying that the average hit is a double. I am saying that the average misplay in leftfield results in two bases.

Compare that to a guy like Bellhorn that may get defense called on 200 times in a season. Infielders generally give up a single base or affect a double play, there is no chance for a double. SS covers the most plays, then 2b, down the defensive spectrum until you hit leftfield who will make the fewer plays. So I believe that strat is correct and that you have your ratio of extra bases in tact.

We don't have real life stats to check this out which is a major loss in sabremetrics. But isn't it possible for a lousy left fielder to make one bad defensive play resulting in extra bases every four games? In strat, it is easy for me to calculate how much a range 1 with 2 errors per season is better than a range 4 with 20 errors, but in real life we don't have that data. I firmly believe that the difference between a bad outfielder like say Carlos Lee and a good outfielder like Scott Podsednik is over 150 points in OPS. Well at least in strat.

I think that MLB believes this too, which is why a sabremetric favorite gets stuck in AAA and why a guy with a 700 OPS is playing everyday. If you believe that the difference in defense is 150 points in OPS or 200 points in OPS then it all makes sense. If you ignore defense then you just pull your hair out wondering why Upton, Huff, and Gomes can't be in the lineup at the same time. Many in the sabremetric community can't believe in the White Sox, but they replaced Carlos Lee (.891 OPS) with Podsednik (.700 OPS), Valentin with Uribe, Willie Harris with Iguchi, Ordonez with Dye, lost Frank Thomas for the year, and won 15 more games. In the strat world we talk about how difficult it is to win with too many 4's on defense, something that the sabremetric community needs to learn to embrace.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 17, 2005 11:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Defining Terms

OK, I think we're at least clear on what we're discussing: not "average hits", but "average bases saved/lost by a good/bad play in LF".

On that front you make some good points, but my gut still tells me you're overvaluing those plays.

For one thing, I personally would keep errors out of the equation. Aside from the signal-to-noise vortex that is the official scorer's decision, left fielders simply don't many that many of them. Look at Barry Bonds -- he made between three and six errors a year for the first sixteen years of his career. It's simply not statistically significant.

(And if you insist on using them, I'd dispute that they're usually worth two bases, since most outfield errors are throwing errors which only give the runner one extra base; plus I think you then have to start factoring in "non-error errors" like missing cut-off men etc., for full accuracy. But I digress.)

Second, I'd say the most common "good play" and "bad play" is not, as you seem to be suggesting, hits turned into outs and vice versa, but rather doubles turned into singles (and vice versa). Even a player like Jim Edmonds only makes those diving highlight-reel catches once in a blue moon. Far more frequent is the ball cut off in the gap, holding the batter to first (or a ball that should have been cut off but wasn't, allowing the runner to advance) -- and even then, they don't happen all that often. Once every four games for a play like that probably isn't unreasonable.

In other words, in most cases, I think a "good" or "bad" outfield play is going to be worth just one base, not two -- and that's especially true of left field, where a ball hit to the wall is almost never going to result in a triple.

One final little nitpick -- using OPS for something like this is counter-productive. OPS is simply a toy, not a real metric. It's pure back-of-the-napkin stuff. It doesn't even really make sense in this context. If you want to keep it simple, you would be far better of breaking it down and saying "Player X's defense allows .060 more BA and .100 more ISO", something like that.

Go ahead and shoot your mouth off, like it might kill the silence.

by ESiegrist on Oct 18, 2005 10:34 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

hard to measure

I agree with many of your points. It is easy to quantify defense in strat but strat isn't real baseball. As far as I can tell, nobody has come up with a good way to measure defense and most analysts completely ignore it. I just reread the baseball prospectus review of the White Sox and they don't even mention defense at all. One of their articles compared Johnny Gomes, Jack Cust and Rob Deer, stating that they were very similar players. They weren't. Deer was an adequate outfielder, Cust was god awful, and who really knows how Gomes will be. I would contend that the biggest factor governing the success of many prospects is how well they will mature defensively. Offerman would have been a great player if he could have been a league average shortstop. Cuddyer would have been a decent secondbaseman offensively, but defensively (at least strat wise) he is a bad fielder wherever he has played which limits his playing time and offensive development.

The analyst that figures out a good way to evaluate defense will be miles ahead of everyone else.

by LindInMoskva on Oct 18, 2005 11:40 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Jose Reyes/Carl Crawford

if you lookat Jose Reyes' numbers this year, they are very similar to crawford's first year. Check it out..

Crawford '03
5 HR
54 RBI
59 SB
.281/.309/.362

Reyes '05
7 HR
58 RBI
60 SB
.273/.300/.386

It'll be interesting to see if Reyes develops the same way Crawford does.

by wright5reyes7 on Oct 17, 2005 4:00 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't see it

Crawford has the body to hit for power. He's 6-2 about 220. He's extremely strong and has some power. Reyes on the other hand, slaps at the ball more and occasionally can jerk one over the fence. He's also 6-0 and only weighs 160. I can't see him hitting more than 10-12 HRs in a season. Not that it's a bad thing. Look at Furcal- when he tries to hit home runs, he often starts to strikeout too much and doesn't take full advantage of his speed.

by UncleMiltie on Oct 17, 2005 4:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs