Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles reports that two sources close to Carl Crawford's camp say he'll likely sign with the Los Angeles Angels. Multiple high ranking baseball sources concurred with these reports. So far, no reports have been released as to what kind of deal Crawford could receive, but I'd have to imagine it'd be in the 8 year $160-170M range.
We shouldn't take this report to mean that Crawford to the Angels is a done deal. He recently met with the Yankees and Rangers, and the Red Sox are rumored to still be interested in making a run at Crawford. As we've learned with the Adrian Gonzalez trade and the Cliff Lee negotiations, these kinds of things can change from minute to minute.
hey chip
ReplyDeletei'm back to the question of skill set aging. Baseball Between the Numbers from BP page 268(free online).
"players who possess speed without any other above-average skills tend to see their careers end relatively early." "Once such player loses a step or two, he'll steal bases less effectively, fail to leg out hits, and won't get to as many balls in the field."multi-faceted players age much better"
Is Crawford multi-faceted by their defintion. Low ISO and few walks.
That's a great question. I tend to think he is. He has decent power (15-20 HR per season), and he'll likely hit more doubles now that he's going to be playing half of his games in Fenway. He and excellent defender, and a plus-base runner. Even though he'll lose a couple of steps over the next seven years (and therefore steal fewer bases), he still has plenty to contribute.
ReplyDeleteThe players they're talking about are the Juan Pierres and Vince Colemans of the world. The ones that steal bases en masse, but provide nothing else. Crawford is definitely not this type of player.
Ellsbury, on the other hand, is sort of this type of player, but not really. He's kind of in the middle.
Does this help?
Since you're a pretty regular reader/commenter, it'd be cool if you signed up as a "follower" of the blog. Love the questions by the way! Keep them coming!
I looked up Coleman and Clemente. I
ReplyDeletedid not remember that VC was so weak.
Clemente BBall-Ref best match. Sounds good to me.