Player Review: Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford came into Spring Training with high hopes and higher expectations, but despite the ray's success, Carl never really lived up to the expectations trhis year. Carl, who was a draft pick in 1998 in the second round and is now 27 years old, put up a relatively unsavory line of ..278/.319/.400, his lowest OPS since 2003, and an OBP that dropped a whopping 36 points from last year. These can be partly attributed to nagging knee injuries and an absolute collapse in his BABIP from .375 and a career BABIP of .330 down to .301.

His stolen Bases also went down, from stealing 45+ every year since 2003, down to a relatively pedestrian 25, no doubt because of the injuries and the drop in On-Base. Another probable cause for his low OBP is because of how often he swings at pitches out of the zone, a relatively huge 31% of the time. His Defense was amazing as always, because despite being injured this year, he contributed roughly 8 runs above the average LF. His isolated power was a little down from the past few years, but now that far below his career levels at .126.

I would expect a healthy Carl next year with a resurgence in speed, Marcel has him projected for .292/.338/.434 with 32 bags swiped, I would personally bump that SLG and SB tallies up a bit with more XBH and OBP oppurtunities due to speed, but I agree with the rest of the projection. Interestingly, at .143, Marcel has CC's isolated power around his career average, ditto with his BABIP. Of course this year has lowered the tallies on those numbers, so it might not be a big deal. Carl's '10 option will most likely get picked up, and this year will be big in determining if we will trade or resign CC in the '10 offseason with a year left on his deal.