Giants Reward Brandon Crawford’s Unusual Path
You can make a strong argument that Brandon Crawford isn’t the best shortstop in baseball. If you’re a track-record kind of guy, the default might still remain Troy Tulowitzki. And there’s just so much young talent around. Carlos Correa came up and showed he can do almost anything. Francisco Lindor came up and arguably outplayed Carlos Correa. Xander Bogaerts is coming off an awful high average, and I haven’t yet said a word about Corey Seager. Or Addison Russell. Not to mention I’m a huge fan of Jung-ho Kang. There are enough possibilities out there that you might choose “field” over “Crawford.” I won’t judge you.
But to argue against Crawford, in a way, is to acknowledge he’s at least in the conversation. And he is, if he isn’t the front-runner. Just as you can argue Crawford isn’t the best, you can argue he is, what with Tulowitzki’s apparent decline. Then you have to take a step back and realize you’re talking about Brandon Crawford. Crawford wasn’t supposed to develop into the player he’s become, and the course of that development gave the Giants the confidence to sign Crawford to a six-year extension worth $75 million. It’s not a stunning agreement now, given what we know, but years back, we didn’t know we’d know this.
Crawford had two more years of arbitration eligibility, so the extension buys out those years, plus another four years of would-be free agency. Details:
Tentative breakdown on Brandon Crawford’s contract: $1.2M signing bonus, $5.8M next year, $8M in 2017, then $15M in subsequent 4 years.
— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) November 18, 2015
There’s also said to be a full no-trade clause. At $15 million, the free-agent years feel like potential bargains. That just isn’t that much money anymore, as ballplayer salaries go, though it’s worth remembering Crawford turns 29 in January. He arrived later than a lot of shortstops, and he established himself later than a lot of shortstops. So this extension goes relatively deep into his 30s. By the end, Crawford will be worse, but his starting point is surprisingly high.
In case any of you need the Crawford summary, he’s always had his defense. He just won his first Gold Glove award, but that was only a little up to him, and UZR has always been on his side. DRS has liked Crawford, the fans have liked Crawford and other observers have liked Crawford. Defense used to be what kept Crawford in the lineup. What’s been astonishing is his offensive improvement. His rookie-year wRC+ was 68. His most recent wRC+ wasn’t quite double that, but it was close enough not to be a gross exaggeration. Crawford has hit better each season, improving his wRC+ at least 10 points each year. You don’t often see players on that path, particularly players who are supposed to be glove-first.
What’s been behind it is power: Crawford hit 21 homers, after having hit three as a rookie and four as a sophomore. At 6-foot-2, Crawford’s had a frame to hit the ball a long way. But after he came up as he did, it would’ve been fair to question his ceiling. This is where Crawford’s course has been historically abnormal. I messed around on the Baseball-Reference Play Index, and I found 585 players who batted at least 500 times between the ages of 24 and 25 who posted an ISO no greater than .100. Crawford fits in here — his age-24 and age-25 seasons were his first two in the majors.
Out of those players, just nine have had seasons in which they batted 500 times with an ISO of at least .200. Of course, some of them are still playing, so the sample could grow. Still, the point won’t change. Just four of them have had seasons in their 20s in which they batted 500 times with an ISO of at least .200. Crawford just joined that group. The previous members were Kirby Puckett, Damion Easley and Brian Roberts.
I don’t mean to suggest Crawford is Puckett, or that he’s Easley or Roberts. Every player has his own path and his own skills. History won’t tell us what Crawford specifically is going to do. What history tells us is that, generally, when a player comes up and doesn’t hit for power, the player will continue not hitting for power. Many players increase their power output over time, but few go to such an extreme as Crawford.
Crawford has worked on his swing and his recognition. His most recent performance level reflects his commitment to becoming the best player he can be. He is at once a symbol of the San Francisco Giants’ player development and an exceptional sort, the sort of player a team is happy to invest in long-term because the internal motor is so visible. The Giants figure Crawford won’t decline because of lack of effort. Even with a step back, he’s a strong defensive shortstop who can hold his own at the plate. And if Crawford sustains his power improvement, he could be worth twice what he’ll be paid.
To show a bit of what Crawford just did, I’ve pulled from Baseball Savant. On the left are pitches Crawford hit out through the end of 2014. On the right are pitches Crawford hit out in 2015:
Before, Crawford sort of had selective power, with some opportunistic swings on pitches in the inner half. In the most recent season, Crawford took to punishing pitches over the plate, even away. He didn’t just have to yank the ball. As another sign, through 2014, Crawford hit only one home run to the opposite field. Last season, he hit five. His swing resembled that of a slugger, with the bat speed to match. And maybe this is the best place to see where Crawford leaped forward. Slugging percentage on fly balls:
- 2011: .421
- 2012: .424
- 2013: .416
- 2014: .535
- 2015: 1.016
Simplified, it’s very easy to understand. Crawford made his fly balls longer. It was a deliberate process, and it’s not that hard to buy into as part of his game going forward. No longer is Crawford the hitter he was; the question is just where he’s going to settle. If he keeps all his power, the Giants are going to love this contract to death. If he keeps a lot of it, it’ll still be team-friendly. With an offensive step backward, Crawford would still be good enough. There’s a lot here to be excited about. There’s already been a lot here to be excited about.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
“Crawford made his fly balls longer.”
Slugging percentage suggests this, but the statement can be verified by looking at the fly ball distance for each of those years. Crawford’s fly ball distance hovered around ~270 feet for 2011-2014 then shot up to 306 feet in 2015. I was really surprised by that dramatic improvement.
On another note, is there a place that we can look at fly ball distance for a single player over the course of his career? The only place I know to get that data is Baseball Heat Maps but as far as I know you can only look at yearly leaderboards. So you can get the data but it’s not as convenient in cases where you are concerned with the development of a single player rather than the performance of the entire MLB in one season.
The current best in the NL.
Wow, you’re right. With Tulo & Simmons both getting promoted to the AL in the past four-ish months, Crawford’s the last man standing.
Addison Russell is on his way
Great signing for the Giants!! With Crawford, Duffy, Belt, Panik and Posey the Giants have the best infield in baseball in my opinion.
I assume your inclusion of Posey is for the 30-40 games he plays at first base and is not an attempt to force catcher into “infield” as it is not an infield position (not listed as such on rosters, or in fantasy, nor do people normally view catchers as infielders).
That said, all those guys had between 4.2 and 4.9 fWAR last year, and then Posey is probably the best backup first baseman in baseball.
The Blue Jays have a good argument based on the left side alone, and would have a better argument if E5 played first more and DHed less.
The Cubs have a good argument, too, but they aren’t great at second and Russell’s good year was based largely on his defense.
I’d probably go Cubs-Giants-Blue Jays, but definitely arguable.
I assume Hurtlocker included Posey as a catcher because he listed starters with no backups at the other 4 positions. Given the players he listed off it seemed pretty clear (to me at least) that he meant the Giants have the best infield+catcher in baseball. What is the problem with “forcing” catcher into the infield in that context?
The other backups provide no excess value and presumably would not ideally play a quarter of the games. Posey does. E5 is a part time first baseman so he has value, too, but not his full value. There is nothing wrong with saying “the Giants have the best infield+catcher in baseball,” it’s just a bit odd. The Giants actually finished second in baseball (Blue Jays), and first in the NL, in player position WAR in 2015, way ahead of the Dodgers.
Took a while for the real David Ortiz to show up too.
It did take a while, but he was always a power hitting DH type. He did hit 20hr in 412ab and 18 in 303 his last 2 years in minnisota as a 25/26 year old. Really looking at his age 26 season in Minnisota, it is not hard to see the guy he turned into. He added muscle but the HR power was already there, the only missing peice was the average, and that came together since he finally had roster protection (to go along with a full time starting job).
The big beefy hitters normally fill out in the bigs at 25/26 (and if ortiz was given a full time gig, he would have broken out at 25 in minnisota). Mo Vaughn, Ryan Howard, Cecil Fielder. Now the guys like this who ended up in the Hall broke out earlier, but that seems to be the line between the all time great big bodied mashers and the one who were elite for only a few years. (ortiz is weird since he broke out a little older, but has had an insane twilight of his career. )
Compared to the 4 year, $53 mil contract the Cardinals gave Jhonny Peralta 2 years ago for his age 32-25 seasons, 4/60 for Crawford’s age 31-34 free agent years beginning in 2018 seems like an even more team-friendly deal. As a Giants fan I was bracing for something more like 6/90+ (including the arb years) than 6/75. Seems like the local boy Crawford gave them a pretty nice hometown discount.
Seems like they paid for Peraltas Prime Years, you really want to avoid the 19-15 years starting to get a little too young.
Oh yes, I see the typo now. I meant Peralta’s age 32-35 seasons of course.
There’s no doubt that there was hometown discount in this IMHO. Not that I’m complaining as a Crawford fan/jersey owner since 2012, but I was sorta surprised this didn’t happen sooner/cheaper than it did.
The full no trade clause also makes it clear that there was hometown discount here. He *wants* to be a career Giant, I’m sure.
Not too thrilled about this as rival fan.
I would of preferred if they overpaid, but they didnt so good for SF . Crawford is really stupid IMO, he threw away at least 25 million in salary he could of got way more.
He wants to be a career Giant, no question.
Crawford is a lifetime Giant.
Yes, he is, and he has the photo to prove it:
Ha, Ha!! Dodgers fan I’m sure!! Signing a $75 million contract doesn’t exactly make you stupid, it just makes you less greedy.
BTW the way Crawford’s swing has developed and given his approach at the plate these days I think the more likely worst case scenario assuming he can stay healthy is that he turns into something more like Ian Desmond last year than that the power goes away. Because although his K rate last year was right in line with his career average and a little better than 2014, his overall contact% has been declining a little every year. Not to the point of being a concern yet. But that seems the more likely path of his offensive decline to me.
He has been more agressive both in and outside the zone though… His swstr% is 13.6% and has been increasing with his power but as you say his K rate is stable. I think worrying about loss of contact and a bump of K rate is not justified. Knock on wood and no jinx but nagging injuries are probably going to be his nemesis.
As someone who bought a Brandon Crawford jersey [1] before the 2012 season, I’ve gotta say I’m feeling fairly vindicated here. I love the guy!
[1] It was a Batting Practice jersey, because obviously he needed to work on his offense — you can send me a thank you later, bcraw; I went to about 20 Giants games in 2012 and got razzed by fans for my jersey with people telling me he sucks; my response was “obviously you don’t remember the Tejada/Cabrera experiment from 2011.”
It’s clear that the first two years of this new contract will definitely be a bargain for the Giants considering what teams pay per WAR nowadays. In other words, even if he doesn’t hit 20+ homers, he will retain much of his value as a plus defensive SS. Don’t you think, though, that this could become a bad deal for them once his defensive value starts to diminish? I know he was a late bloomer, but an article by Tom Tango (granted it was from 2008) showed evidence that SS peak as early as 25 and as late as 28. If he is heading into his age 29 season, isn’t it reasonable to think that he will begin his descent from defensive prominence over the course of the next few years? And if this happens, it will be up to his bat (which hasn’t been his strong point since coming to the majors) to make up for the lost defensive value. I am not sure what he would have gotten the next two years in arbitration, but this deal could be a big hit or miss. As someone pointed out above, his contact rate has dropped every single year. For a guy who hits mostly groundballs and strikes out 20% of the time, that would concern me. He will have to gain most of his value from hitting homers, and that’s not something that may happen at the rate he did this year.
I’ve liked Crawford’s bat since his debut grand slam. His strikeouts never looked embarrassing and he never seemed flustered. Even his unproductive at bats felt solid.
The last few years he’s strung together two month stretches of .800 OPS. Then fatigue or little injuries would set him back. He always seemed on the verge of figuring things out and a breakout season.
The key going forward, in my opinion, will be managing his playing time.
Crawford has actually had this power from the start, hitting a grand slam homer as his first major league hit (3rd PA/AB). His problem has been consistency, as he would have a good idea about the strike zone, then be totally lost, striking out a storm, or worse, get injured and play with the injury.
He’s been very up and down during his career, as he showed his potential early in the 2013 season, nearly have a 900 OPS in April (still, .272/.346/.511/.857, with 5 HRs and 239 ISO was very good), and maintaining a high 700 OPS until mid-June that year. That year, he injured his hand sliding into second, and continued to play anyway, and his batting line went south like a rock. He hit well until late June in 2014, getting 7 homers in the first third of the season (198 ISO), but declined again after that. 2015, he finally hit well from start to finish.
What most people don’t know is that Crawford was actually ranked by Baseball America in their Top 10 in the pre-season ranking published in their annual ranking book, before the season of his draft. He did OK in his junior season, but no where near what was expected of him, so he ended up falling back to the fourth round, where the Giants picked him. So he’s finally fulfilling what was seen in him before his junior year, when he was in the Top 10 pre-season ranking.
People seem to get amazed by other teams, like all the articles that have come out after the Royals won, extolling their virtues, or even the A’s, when they were winning, but that’s one of the interesting features of Giants drafts after John Barr took over, how he and his staff looks at each prospect from a long term view, that talent persists, not from a “what did he do last year” perspective. I’ve seen nobody discuss that.
If you look at the news leading up to the draft, all the mock drafts, all the commentary, it’s all about what that guy is doing right now. And guys who underperform gets beaten up badly in the discussions. And that’s understandable.
But I’ve noticed that Barr keeps his eyes on the players who were viewed as a good prospect in prior years, but, for whatever reason, wasn’t performing THAT year, or who were considered early in that draft but fell to them in later rounds. He’s picked up guys like Crawford, Belt, Susac, Osich like that. Not that this always works, but it sure is working better than what the Giants were doing before he joined, that is for sure.
Forgot to add that I recall seeing a list of leaders in homers off 95+ MPH pitches, and Crawford had a good number of them (if I find that website again, I’ll post it here). I recall being surprised to see him there and Pence, Morse not having much more.