No one projected Carl Crawford to play so poorly last season. Rather, many experts thought that his move to Fenway and into a loaded lineup would possibly lead to even better numbers than the ones he put up in his 7.6 fWAR 2010 season. While Crawford did improve a bit after an amazingly bad April, he never quite put it all together, missed a chunk of time with a hamstring injury and graded out surprisingly poor on defense, an area in which he had always excelled. His defensive woes were personified when he failed to make an important would-be catch against the Orioles late last season, which wasn’t by any means a routine play, but one that his fans had grown to expect him to make.
With 2011 behind him and a year of adjusting to the bustling baseball world of Boston, many, including the Fire Brand crew, touted Crawford as a bounce-back candidate for the coming season. The projections, though underwhelming compared to his best seasons, echoed our opinions.
Bill James: .286/.332/.436, 15 HR, 34 SB, 93 R, 73 RBI
ZiPS: .282/.325/.448, 14 HR, 32 SB, 80 R, 72 RBI
PECOTA: .289/.335/.436, 11 HR, 34 SB, 68 R, 67 RBI
While none of those projections make Crawford look like a $20M man, a healthy and improved season on the defensive end would certainly go a long way to appeasing the Fenway crowds.
Crawford’s health, however, is already a concern. Just the other day, Bobby Valentine spoke about Crawford’s recovery from wrist surgery, suggesting that the speedy outfielder might miss the first few weeks of the regular season.
Not good.
A hot start to 2012 would have helped Red Sox fans forgive and forget Crawford’s miserable 2011, but that seems like a long shot at this point, even if he’s in the opening day starting lineup. Crawford is running, fielding, throwing, but not hitting. Considering how important wrists are in a player’s swing, Crawford will have to make a full recovery if he is to approach the projections that have been cast upon him, so he cannot rush back. If Crawford struggles out of the gates as he did in 2011, injury or not, the fans are sure to exclaim their frustration often. Such a response would be unfortunate, as Crawford’s skills weren’t what went wrong for him last season. His walk rate, contact rate and GB/FB rates didn’t change much and his increase in strikeout rate seems to correlate with his wrist injury, which has bothered him during last season.
When healthy, I fully expect Crawford to bounce back and reform into the exciting and electric ballplayer that he was in Tampa Bay. The problem is, we won’t know about Crawford’s health until after the start of the season and maybe not even until a few weeks after he does make his debut.
As difficult as it may be, we must all practice patience with Crawford in 2012. He needs to get healthy and he needs to settle in to a consistent spot in the lineup. Should both of those things happen, there’s a good chance that, at least for a while, Red Sox Nation will forget about the money and just enjoy the show.