Pitchers Will Tell Us About Allen Craig

What if I told you Allen Craig played hurt last year, and I could prove it? You’d probably say something like “uh” or “that won’t be necessary.” Submitted as evidence: last season, Allen Craig sucked. He finished with a wRC+ that was just about half his previous season’s mark. Submitted as further evidence: Craig and everyone around him admitted he was playing hurt (Update: actually, maybe not!). There was absolutely zero mystery Craig had an injured foot, and hitters like to say almost all their success comes from the lower body. We can’t pin all of Craig’s struggles on his ailment, but it sure would make sense as an explanation.

Conveniently, though, we see other indicators. It was widely understood Craig was hurt. Because Craig was hurt, he had a different swing. Because he had a different swing — and different levels of strength — Craig was attacked in a different way. Allen Craig’s pitch pattern in 2014 strongly hinted at something being wrong, and so Craig’s pitch pattern in 2015 will tell us, and tell us quickly, to what degree he’s recovered. Even before Craig has much of a batting sample size, the pitchers will tell us if he seems like a threat.

You remember prime Allen Craig — excellent, underrated hitter. Quietly one of the better hitters in the major leagues. According to reports, the Red Sox had wanted him for a while, and they ultimately traded for him, even when he was a mess. The hope is that he’ll stop being a mess, but everyone knew he was a mess in 2014. No one knew better than Craig’s opponents.

Craig first tried to play through injury in the 2013 World Series. The Red Sox responded by feeding him 74% fastballs, believing he wouldn’t be able to turn on them. Previously, Craig’s fastball rate hovered around the mid-50s. It was a small sample size, but it was also an immediate response, and it carried over, as Craig continued to be hobbled into and through 2014.

Relative to the season before, last year, Craig’s fastball rate increased more than six percentage points, which was one of the highest increases in the league. According to Baseball Savant, in 2013, just under 24% of pitches to Craig were fastballs over or beyond the inner third of the plate. Then, in 2014, that rate jumped to a hair over 31%, yielding a league-leading increase of 7.2 percentage points. Craig’s rate, two years ago, fell outside the upper quartile, among right-handed hitters. Last year he ranked in the upper 3%. This heat-map .gif is a different way of showing you the same thing:

Last season, pitchers were increasingly aggressive with Craig over the inner part of the plate. Why pitch like that, and why pitch like that with fastballs? The obvious explanation is pitchers didn’t think Craig could turn on their inside stuff. Craig’s spray charts and overall numbers stand as support. The following .gif was made possible by Brooks Baseball, and it compares Craig’s 2013 balls in play to his 2014 balls in play.

Grounders? Oh, the grounders got pulled. Craig didn’t stop pulling grounders. He actually hit a bunch more grounders. But now look at the colored dots in the outfield. Whatever balls Craig hit in the air, he pushed more than he used to. I wrote about this sometime last summer, but it bears repeating now that we have more information, and now that we have a new season almost upon us. Last season, probably because of his injury, Craig proved no longer real able to hit the ball in the air to left field. A good chunk of Craig’s power used to be to left field. With that sapped, and with his already mediocre speed diminished, Craig couldn’t do anything in 2014. That’s how you build a 69 wRC+. You take a good hitter and give him a broken-down body.

Now, it’s March 2015. It’s beyond time to stop reviewing last season’s performance. But there was a reason for this. Craig is still with the Red Sox, and for now, the team insists he’s going to make the Opening Day roster. That’s not a surprise. He isn’t yet tradeable, and he’s far from worth being dropped. Craig says he’s finally healthy — coming off a winter of recovery — and it’s impossible to ignore the appeal of a potentially productive Allen Craig, given what he’s been. A good Craig would give the Red Sox options. Every team wants more options — even teams with as much depth as the Red Sox have.

So plenty of eyes will be on Craig to see if he’s gotten back, or mostly back, to what he was. And, certainly, Craig will show signs of health if he’s feeling 100%. But as fans, we don’t have to just look at Craig. It’s difficult to analyze swings. Thankfully, teams analyze swings, and there’s no hiding from approach tactics. How Craig gets pitched will reflect how teams think he can be retired, and if Craig is no longer challenged as much inside then that’ll strongly suggest opponents are back to respecting his power and bat speed. We saw how quickly he was taken advantage of in the 2013 World Series. It took no time at all for an opponent to get aggressive with heat, and aggressive inside. If Craig is actually healthy enough to hit those pitches, it stands to reason he’ll see fewer of them.

Yeah, in time, Craig’s batting numbers will tell the story. It’s kind of the same with Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia will also be trying to prove he’s healthy. And if Pedroia’s healthy, he’ll hit. Pitch patterns are kind of like a sneak peek. But we’re people who want to know things as quickly as we can. Generation Internet, or something. Come July, we’ll know if Allen Craig is back to being a good hitter. Come April or May, though, we’ll know if opponents think Craig is back to being a good hitter. Usually, teams are reluctant to share nuggets of strategy. Some things, though, you can’t keep hidden.