He’s still only 25, but if you go back to his days as a prospect, Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford was seen as an elite young talent. Crawford was the 16th overall pick of the Phillies in 2013, and Baseball America ranked him as the sixth-best farmhand in the sport after the 2015 season.
“At his best, he has a future as an all-star shortstop who can play above-average defense and hit for power,” BA wrote.
Crawford, however, hasn’t realized that vast potential with either organization he has played for to this point. Injuries did play a part in derailing Crawford’s tenure with the Phillies, but even when he was healthy enough to take a major league field from 2017-18, he put together an unspectacular line of .214/.333/.358 with three home runs in 225 plate appearances. Having seen enough, the Phillies dealt Crawford to the Mariners in December 2018 in what was a rather noteworthy trade. The retooling Mariners gave up infielder Jean Segura and relievers Juan Nicasio and James Pazos in order to acquire Crawford and first baseman Carlos Santana.
There’s no more Santana in Seattle – the team flipped him to Cleveland before he ever donned an M’s uniform – so the deal was largely about finding a long-term answer at shortstop. For at least some portion of last season, it looked as the Mariners were on to something. Crawford came flying out of the gates after debuting with the Mariners in the first half of last May, but his production plummeted after June.
In each of July, August and September, Crawford posted a wRC+ of less than 65. With an overall mark of 63 in the second half of the season, he was the third-worst offensive player in baseball, logging a .188/.288/.299 line in 229 trips to the plate. Crawford did draw walks (11.8 percent) and limit strikeouts (18.8) better than the average hitter then, though a .224 batting average on balls in play down the stretch didn’t help his cause. However, Crawford largely brought the low BABIP on himself with a lack of meaningful contact. According to FanGraphs, Crawford finished with the majors’ second-highest soft-contact rate (26 percent) and its third-worst hard-contact percentage (24.1). Statcast wasn’t impressed, either, as it placed Crawford in the basement of the league in important offensive categories such as average exit velocity, expected weighted on-base average and barrel percentage, to name a few.
The biggest roadblock the left-handed Crawford faced in 2019 was his inability to do anything against same-handed hurlers, who turned him into one of the worst hitters in the league. He batted an awful .160/.268/.179 with a stunningly low .019 ISO against them, but a much more palatable .255/.333/.456 with a .201 ISO versus righties. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time Crawford has run into that type of trouble, evidenced in part by the fact that he has never hit a single homer off a lefty during 144 tries in his career, and he’s a lifetime .144/.272/.171 batter against them. To state the obvious, that’s not going to cut it.
Crawford’s going to have to major strides against southpaws in order to amount to anything more than a platoon player in the majors. And it’s not as if he has shown he’s a defensive wizard whose work at short will cover for his flaws at the plate. Through almost 1,100 innings (including 806 a season ago), he has put up minus-9 Defensive Runs Saved and a minus-1.7 Ultimate Zone Rating.
The good news is that there’s still time for Crawford to figure it out. He’s controllable for five more years, and the Mariners don’t look as if they’ll contend for at least the next season or two, so they can afford to be patient with Crawford. So far, though, Crawford hasn’t shown many signs that he’ll live up to the hype he garnered as a prospect.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Cesar Izturis Jr. is the future for the Mariners at SS
Our player development is so good in Seattle JP is screwed. Lol hopefully he is working hard like someone like Kelenic not like Montero whose off season work out was getting up for more cervasa. If someone was around to get it for him using the remote was his heavy day. I heard he drank his cervasa from a straw so he didn’t have to lift it.
Scouts seemed to like Cesar, but he didn’t have a great 2019.
Probably not. But let him play everyday. Nothing to lose at this point
All of 25 years old, but sure, go ahead and write him off.
Not writing him off to be a possible regular or platoon but superstar yeah career arc for SS doesn’t look kindly over that 30 age mark nowadays
The entire point of the article is evaluating Crawford, for better or worse. I agree with AG.
He has given us no reason not to write him off.
Besides the continual habit of being bad at hitting baseballs, sure.
Yep, agree.
And still, he’s played essentially one full season (621 PA), and produced 2.1 fWAR.
That’s ok, not great, but he’s entering his age 25 season, so there’s still some room for hope.
OPS+ below 90, decent SS defense… that 1.1 bWAR in 93 games is an example of the flukiness of the stat. He had a terrible season. And he’s 25 going on 26, not exactly young for a “prospect “
That is more than reason enough to question the usefulness, quality and value of WAR, That number must have been grabbed out of the ether and cannot be supported by any facts whatsoever.
Ok.
What part of that comment was writing him off? You’re acting like he said, “Absolutely not! This guy is a bum!”
25 years old isn’t actually very young in terms of player development… plus he’s never exactly lit up the minors. At what point do you judge a player on what they are rather than on what others are saying he’s supposed to be?
It’s true, he turns 26 next year.
A shortstop doesn’t have to light anything up though to be a key contributor.
2 shortstops through age 24:
Rollins: 482 games, .712 OPS, 86 wRC+
Crawford: 165 games, .687 OPS, 88 wRC+
I don’t know what JPC will do, and certainly not saying he’ll put up anything like Rollins’ career.
Watched him every game last year. Unimpressed. Should have kept Segura.
Clueless remark. Moving the attitude and money alone was worth getting rid of Segura. Throw in the potential of what Crawford, Then, and Campbell can become and it’s a no brainer for a rebuilding team
In 6 years, Segura will still be hitting .300 while Crawford will be selling used cars in California.
If Segura is still in the league in 6 years, it will be with his 10th team.
If you factor everything in, not just stats, Segura was a bust. A young, happy player is better.
Definitely not the Phillies drafted him so he is going to be a bust worth a shoot at shortstop guess because at the worst he hits 230 with 20sb and at the best, he wins a gold glove at short hits 260 with 30sb it the best your probably going to get.
He has 11 attempts to steal in a season worth of PAs, I don’t think 20-30 SB is even realistic
The last time he swiped 20 bags he was in A-ball. He was also thrown out 14 times that year..thrown out by catchers in A ball……
Not even remotely realistic to suggest 20 SBS at his floor. That’s a ceiling. One that I find unlikely he’ll ever hit in the big leagues.
Watched him in Philly for a few years can’t play. Flashes then long periods of low level play.
Agreed, that is what we saw last year. He would be hot for like 10 games then falls off for a while.
This. I loved him during hot streaks and loathed him during the valleys. I saw him play third for the Phillies and was wowed by his range and hands. He’s got great speed, great agility, some sneaky power, and a really good eye. Unfortunately he does not punish mistakes at the plate and ends up swinging at worse pitches during the at bat. It’s almost as if he shows too much patience. I’m much more of a fan of Segura.
Phillies are pretty bad at evaluating young talent. The current roster is just what… Hoskins, Nola, and Kingery as in-house starters? They are pretty good at selling their prospects off in trades tho. Hardly any have ever panned out. Domingo Santana for a year? d’Arnaud has lurked around the league as a mediocre catcher for a while. But Knapp is also still in the league, so that’s just a lack of catchers issue. Their farm system usually produces turds bc they draft dudes like Larry Greene in the 1st.
thats why i cant begrudge their talent evaluation. they knew evidently that trading most of those guys wouldnt hurt too much. that Darnaud has probably been the 2nd best player dealt in those many trades isnt too bad. for a large prospect selloff over several years.
Hang on. You can’t begrudge their talent evaluation because they were willing to move on from players that they thought weren’t going to be good? What about the fact that they thought these guys were going to be good before they poorly developed them?
Since the 2014 draft their picks have produced 30 WAR so far, which is 4th most in MLB for those drafts.
With Howard and Bohm on the way, hopefully they can keep that going, we’ll see.
More here: thegoodphight.com/2020/2/21/21138786/where-are-all…
Of the Phillies 1st round draft choices since 2003, only Nola has produced more than 1 WAR for the team over the entirety of their career. It is a terrifying list if you are a Phillies fan.
cant believe everyone poo pooed this trade from the Phils side. we traded a raw SS for one that is good now. he didnt have his best year last year but will likely bounce back. i was sad to see Santana go but he wss expendable.
Anyone who complained about the Phillies side of the trade must not have seen Hoskins play outfield… or attempt to play outfield rather. The guy had a -21 DRS in left field!
As for Crawford, he never impressed me, not even as a prospect. He did not really hit AAA pitching and promoting him seemed confusing. I could see if he was a defensive stud but his defense is average at best.
He hit .319/.420/.457 in AAA last year.
In all of 150 ABS during his 3rd go around in AAA though, Dave……
Encouraging that he actually hit AAA pitching for a change. But when you consider his career—he hasn’t hit AAA pitching very well.
His 3 stints in AAA:
2016 (age 21): 90 wRC+
2017 (age 22): 114
2019 (age 24): 121
(and ’18 for 68 PAs, with 114)
On the one hand, he didn’t really improve much there last year, after adjusting for the league (PCL).
On the other, he’s been consistently an above average hitter in AAA after starting slowly there at 21.
He also derived a significant amount of his value from being patient at the plate in AAA. Which is jacking that WRC+ number north. Taking a walk is certainly a very good skill to have but if you’re hit tool is not there; you aren’t going to be able to draw those walks in the major leagues. They’re just going to pound with you strikes and dare you to hit it.
Granted.
It was 13.8% last year in AAA.
It’s 11.6% for his career in the majors to date, so it has worked so far, and I doubt pitchers have had much fear of him. He’s always had a good eye.
Yeah. I saw that he still maintained a strong walk rate in the second half last year—even though he was abysmal hitting the ball. Not very encouraging to see a strong first 2 months followed up by 3 really bad ones. Kinda gives you the feeling that the book was out on him after the first 2 months. But I’d have to take a deeper dive into that to see what pitches he struggled w/ consistently.
Was a good trade for the Phillies
The biggest issue was the length of Segura’s deal and the fact he isn’t going to be a SS forever. He lasted a year, now you’re taking a 14M lux tax hit for an average hitter to play 2B/3B
I certainly wasn’t expecting Segura’s bat to decline so quickly. If that continues, yea the trade becomes much less appealing. But I liked the trade when it was made.
His defense was improving throughout the season. Seattle seems happy with where his glove is at.
But obviously he has to hit LHPs and be more consistent facing RHPs. He put on muscle over the offseason and worked on a few things, so it will be interesting to see if the changes lead to improvement.
Worst case, he could probably be a decent, if not solid, utility infielder. Lucky for Seattle, they can give him through 2021 and look for an alternative starting SS in the 2022 offseason if necessary.
Exactly! Last year was his first (mostly) full year at the major league level. I’m curious to see if the added muscle helps him but as you say the Mariners have the luxury of giving him time to work things out.
The M’s tear-down has put them in a position to afford a player from that super talented 2021-22 FA SS class. Seattle should also have a pretty good idea if their current #6 prospect Noelvi Marte is the SS or 3B of the future. 18 yrs of age- he’s a long way away from a ML roster but again Seattle has the luxury of time to let things work themselves out.
Ted Williams played a season ending double header with his .400 batting average on the line, tore it up and finished at .406. Segura was sitting on .300 with one game to go and sat out to preserve it. Segura and Cano formed the worst jerk combo in Seattle history. Glad to see both go.
Just a little different from the Omar Vizquel and Harold Reynolds tandem eh?
In Segura defense, .300 looks better than .299 when it comes to making an argument for your money. His salary doesn’t compare to the ole ted Williams days
Bpax- a little tongue in cheek here but, Ted Williams was one stubborn SOB! Prob helped him achieve some of those amazing accomplishments
No… he stinks… way overrated as a prospect. I should know, I too as a Braves fan am currently seeing this first hand. Although I think Swanson is better than jp. But I mean hey, which is better, a tomato or raw broccoli…. they both kinda stink alone, so which is really better?
JP needs a better eye
He may have some decent seasons but Noelvi Marte is the Mariners SS of the future