Brandon Crawford’s skills

Published by on June 14, 2011 | 9 Responses

Andrew Baggarly has an interesting writeup today on Brandon Crawford and his defensive skills at shortstop. The video (above) was linked in the post and it’s amazing to watch. Crawford’s pregame routine in the minors was to put on a defensive show of behind-the-back throws, no-look passes, and all sorts of cool tricks.

Baggs states in the article, that:

It’s been a long time since the Giants promoted a homegrown shortstop with range, sure hands, creative playmaking ability and a clue at the plate. Although Vizquel entertained Giants fans for four seasons, and won a pair of Gold Gloves, too, he was 38 when he came to the club as a free agent in 2005.

Crawford is really the first Giant since Royce Clayton to come up as a SS with a solid defensive skill-set. I’m not counting the Brian Bocock fiasco; the defense for Bock wasn’t a question, the bat was, and it’s obvious that he was rushed. Over the past 20 years, the Giants have seen players like Rich Aurilia, Omar Vizquel, Edgar Renteria, Jose Uribe, Jose Vizcaino, and Ivan Ochoa grab starts at the position. Outside of Omar, there aren’t many good glove guys in that group. Aurilia’s defense is a bit of a mystery. He actually doesn’t rate that bad by FanGraphs’ defensive numbers (+6.1 runs by UZR/150 between 2002-2007). Baseball-Reference’s Total Zone has Aurilia at a +1 run per 135 defensive games over his career at SS. Both numbers suggest that Aurilia wasn’t below average, or even a butcher at SS, but he wasn’t a truly above-average defender, either. The eyeball test, for the most part, backs that up. Aurilia was a competent shortstop, not a whiz.

No shame in that, and dude was a pretty good hitter for his Giants’ career (minus the return part, which wasn’t pretty).

Outside of defense, Crawford has been a pleasant surprise at the dish. He’s slumped recently, lowering his wOBA to .264, but his walk-rate is good (10.2%) and his strikeout-rate (13.2%) is very good compared to his minor league career. Over his career in the minors, Crawford has swung-and-missed approximately 25% of the time. I’m skeptical that he’s a sub-20% strikeout-rate player in the majors, but he’s always had the knack for drawing a walk and hitting for occasional power. Visually, Crawford appears to stay within the strike zone during most at-bats. And he looks like he can handle breaking stuff down and in. I wonder how he’ll adjust to more fastballs being thrown his way, but for now, his defense should keep him in the starting lineup.

There’s a good chance that Crawford isn’t a major league caliber hitter. The Giants’ current set of problems gives the team an opportunity to evaluate Crawford’s hitting at the highest level. That’s valuable data to collect, and it sure beats the Tejada alternative.

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UPDATE: I meant to include this above, but for those that are curious, the ZiPS rest-of-season projections have Crawford at a .280 wOBA. With the defense, that’s getting close to being a useful player to have. For example, Cesar Izturis couldn’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag (career .274 wOBA) but his defense has kept him employed.

We ranked Crawford as the 11th best prospect in the system before the 2011 season.

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brocean
brocean

What's the acceptable slashline for Crawford to stick with his glove? 260/320/400. You don't think he maybe has that type of ceiling? I really would like for him to stick.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
obsessivegiantscompulsive

Nice rundown of Crawford. Yeah, rubbing the lucky rabbit's foot re: the Professor, as what we have been observing sounds nothing like the wildly whiffing wonder we see in his minor league stats. Maybe he used his time on the DL early this season to train on the Giants video training system, because the patience he has shown in games so far this season does not jibe with his prior performance. The nice thing is that I think the Giants can handle subpar offense from him as long as we are getting superlative defense from him at SS. With Tejada probably now a bench insurance guy, Bochy can go with Crawford mostly, but when he sees Brandon struggling, rest him a day or two by starting Tejada, particularly against LHP. Unlike Belt, who quickly degenerated from whatever good habits he learned last year, and striking out a storm, Crawford has been amazingly patient batting, putting in long sequences sometimes, while other times he's super-aggressive and hits the ball in play immediately. He has a low P/PA, despite the walks and apparent patience in some ABs, so I would guess that his standard deviation on P/PA is probably much larger than other players. I'm encouraged and hopeful, but wary that he might regress in some way. But definitely start him until he's clearly struggling, his defense is too good not to. So far, the only extended struggle he has had batting was the Reds series, and he answered that nicely with his 2-hit game yesterday.

Mr. Señor
Mr. Señor

I'm not sure what to expect from Crawford. If he hits .260-.270 with great defense, would you find that acceptable? I would definitely, considering Tejada no longer has the range to play an adequate SS.

@KGWorldwide
@KGWorldwide

I just don't think we've seen enough of his bat (obviously) to make a fair judgement of him yet. But personally, I'd say he has a good approach at the plate, a nice compact 2-strike swing, and a lethal arm. He just looks like a ballplayer, and his slick fielding skills make him an upgrade over Tejada in my opinion. I say let the kid stay and continue to learn at the highest level.

Adam C
Adam C

I'm not sold on Crawford as a a hitter at all. He was completely mediocre in extended time in the Eastern League. Most likely he'll regress back to that level. What does the give the Giants? A great defensive player who is an absolute zero at the plate. That might fly on a team with a great offense. But the Giants can't score runs so this puts even more pressure on the hitters that can actually hit. We'll see if it works. I love Crawford's glove, though.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

You're right to be skeptical of his hitting. Though, I think (hope?) there's room for growth. He at least looks patient.

josh
josh

BRANDON CRAWFORD IS AWESOME we needed a solid fielding shortstop ! what a difference an opportunity makes and just as all of us giants fans said PLAY NATE how many walk offs will he hit this year ? we can't expect that every night but with a team that struggles offensively it pays to have someone who is un fazed by the pressure of late game hitting ! i never understood the old slow shortstop experiment well here we go there will most likely be moves before the trade deadline but lets see what happens !

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

Most enthusiastic post of the year award goes to Josh.