Carl Crawford is a very nice baseball player. He gets on base at a solid rate, hits a few home runs, steals bases at an excellent clip, and plays fantastic defense in left field. Due to his all-around contributions, Crawford probably ranks among the top 20 position players in baseball.
When he signed a seven-year, $142 million deal with the Red Sox last night, Crawford became the seventh-highest paid player in baseball. It should be noted that of the six players ahead of him — Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Howard, Joe Mauer, C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana and Mark Teixeira — at least half of their contracts already appear to be overpays and potential long-term albatrosses.
Based on Fangraphs’ WAR — which heavily values Crawford’s defense — the newest Red Sox has been worth between $25 and $28 million the last two seasons, meaning he’ll likely be worth his contract for at least the next couple of years. But since much of Crawford’s game is based on his legs, it’s no sure thing he’ll be providing ample return on his contract in its waning years, when he’ll be in his mid-30s.
The Red Sox’ position is defensible. They managed 89 wins in baseball’s toughest division despite a rash of injuries in 2010, and they traded for Adrian Gonzalez earlier this offseason. Boston must capitalize on the years it has with one of baseball’s most valuable assets — a duo of excellent young pitchers in Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz. The additions of Crawford and Gonzalez make the team obvious favorites for postseason play in the next few years, and flags fly forever and all that.
Matt Cerrone suggested recently — in a post I can’t currently dig up — that top free agents this offseason could be getting such huge contracts because of teams’ recent trend toward locking up young players to long-term deals. That creates more competition for the few top-flight players that do hit the market, so contracts become more expensive. Supply and demand and whatnot.
So by that rationale, Crawford and Jayson Werth are not wild overpays, teams just know that the new price of free agents is high, and teams have more flexibility to sign free agents to fill holes because they’ve got many of their homegrown players locked down to reasonably team-friendly deals. The Sox, for example, have Lester, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia under contract for several years at below-market rates.
Anyway, if that’s true, it would stand to reason that at some point the market should start turning back around. If Mike Stanton or Jason Heyward sees the type of money that Werth and Crawford are getting on the open market, he could opt to wait out free agency instead of letting his team buy out his arbitration years and the few seasons beyond. That means less money in the near-term and significantly more risk to the player, of course — one injury could jeopardize a life’s worth of money — but as the reward grows greater, it’s hard to imagine more players not taking that risk.
And then eventually, I guess, the cycle repeats itself.
In the here and now, I wonder how Crawford’s contract affects Jose Reyes’ status with the Mets. From 2006-2008, Reyes was a very comparable player to Crawford, only playing a premium position. He always says he loves New York and he wants to be a Met, but if he returns to form in 2011, he will likely stand to make a ton of money on the open market.
The team should probably work to lock up Reyes to an extension as soon as it determines he’s healthy and productive and apt to be the shortstop in Flushing for the long-term. If he’s playing well, Reyes will likely become more expensive as he approaches free agency and as he and his agent begin to consider the offseason payoffs to players like Crawford and Werth.
Tedquarters 
This deal blows away even the high range of what I thought Crawford would get. And people complain that Reyes is going to make $11M this year.
If like you said Reyes just goes back to being Reyes, which is more than likely if hes is healthy, he is a better player than Crawford.
With the way salaries are being dished out this offseason, I’m almost glad that the Mets are ‘out of the game” so to speak, while these salaries and such seem to be peaking.
I like Carl Crawford, but never considered him a superstar players, just a very good player, and he got the second richest deal ever for an outfielder.
Agreed. Crawford is an excellent player, but wildly overrated. Way too much money for a left fielder who does not hit for power, and whose OBP is largely batting average driven.
Thats the other key part people dont bring up is that hes a left fielder. There are premium positions on the field like SS, CF, catcher, even RF etc. And there is left field which is probably the least valuable position on the field. Its basically the place where the worst defender on a team plays. Its where you hide the bat that cant play defense.
Its where Manny Ramirez played, Matt Holiday, Carlos Lee, Soriano, heck its where the Mets stuck Daniel Murphy. Its probably the least important position defensively.
So while Crawford is an excellent defender, you can almost though say, that the Sox gave him that contract strictly for offense, and thats alot of money for just offense.
The problem actually isn’t specifically that he plays left field. Frankly, he’s one of the best defensive left fielders any of us will ever see. So if he gives you defense that’s 30 runs better than an average left-fielder, those 30 runs aren’t any less meaningful coming from left field than they would be coming from center.
What’s weird about it to me is him playing left *in Fenway*. If you have a huge ballpark, a good left-fielder can be a huge advantage (for example, Crawford’s old home, Tropicana field, is 415 feet to the left-center gap). But Fenway has one of the tiniest left fields in all of baseball. It seems to me that Crawford’s value is significantly diminished by playing left in Fenway versus playing left for another team, or even playing right for the Sox. I’ve been telling all my friends who are Sox fans today that, if I were Boston, I’d see if I could talk Crawford and Drew into switching corners.
And yes, the fact that his game is so speed-driven is a concern for the long-term, although he’s athletic enough all around that he might be able to get away with it. It’s a big contract, but the Sox can afford it, and it’s not nearly as bad as the Werth deal.
I think there’s basically no chance it ends up a net win for Boston, and a not insignificant chance it ends up an albatross. I’m sure the front office understands all that though, and I have a lot more faith in those guys than I do in most other FO’s around the league. Whatever the case, the Sox are going to be ridiculous this year.
No doubt this is an overpay, and a deal that could look really bad in 4 years. But the Sox, unlike the Nats, are World Series contenders right now. And if Crawford helps them win a Series or two in the next four years, hard to say the contract wasn’t worth it.
The Sox lost 40 million off their books this year and have another 50 million coming off next year.
And that’s clearly where Alderson is trying to get the Mets to. Big money coming off every year, flexibility to sign whoever you want every year, etc.
With the Sox swooping in and signing Crawford the Angels offseason is looking even bleaker and more uneventful than the Mets has been. I wonder which team between the Angels and the Mets will end up with more wins this year.
Speaking of the Angels, great quote from their GM in response to losing Crawford:
“I think I already made a huge splash with (Hisanori) Takahashi,” Reagins said. “He adds a lot of value to your club.”
Ted you and I have debated Reyes for a while now. I am sure others agree with me now that you have gone overboard with comparing Reyes to Crawford. But if you are correct all the more reason to trade Reyes. WHy would you give him 20+ Mil a year.
I said Reyes from 2006-08, right? Check it out:
Reyes, 2006-2008: .292/.355/.461
Crawford, 2006-2010: .302/.350/.462
In those spans, Reyes averaged 16 homers a season and Crawford averaged 14. Reyes averaged 66 steals a season at a very good clip and Crawford averaged 40 steals a season at a great clip.
From 2006-2008, Jose Reyes was a remarkably similar offensive player to Carl Crawford. Like probably as similar as any two players you’ll find in baseball. It’s not overboard at all.
Obviously the last two seasons have gone a hell of a lot better for Crawford than they have for Reyes. But Reyes plays a premium position and Crawford plays essentially the second-easiest position in the field.
Reyes’ recent injury history will probably cost him some on the open market. But if he plays as well in 2011 as he can, and as well as he did from 2006-2008, there’s no doubt he and his agent will start looking at Crawford’s contract as a comp.
And Reyes will be hitting the market at 28, just like Crawford. If he plays 158 games this year and puts up the kind of numbers he’s capable of putting up, it’ll take a truck-load of money to sign him. But it’ll be really hard for a team to go 7 years for a player with his injury history who plays such a physically demanding position.
Crawford’s 29, turning 30 in 2011.
He is a good player
I don’t think a Reyes return to form is “to be expected” at this point.