Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Crawford Crawling Up the Ranks

J.P. Crawford was an afterthought for most fantasy managers during draft season. His ADP was well outside the top-300 on Fantrax, and he was the 43rd shortstop selected in March NFBC drafts. There were several solid reasons for avoiding him. First off, shortstop is loaded, and many teams grabbed multiple shortstops early on to get ahead of the game. And while Crawford amassed nearly 700 plate appearances last season, he just didn’t do a whole heck of a lot. Crawford managed just nine home runs and three stolen bases. His average was decent enough at .273, and hitting atop the Mariners lineup allowed him to score 89 runs. But when Seattle acquired Adam Frazier last fall, Crawford’s position near the top of the lineup became tenuous. A hitter who doesn’t hit homers or steal bases and likely hits towards the bottom of the order is not exactly a coveted commodity in fantasy.

On top of this, his batted ball metrics were less than ideal. He ranked in the bottom 10 percentile last season in hard-hit rate, barrel percentage, and expected slugging percentage. Crawford’s .103 ISO (isolated slugging percentage) ranked 124th out of 132 qualified hitters last year. However, he ended the year on a high note, hitting .311 with three home runs in September. So far in 2022, he has picked up right where he left off. Crawford enters the weekend with a .352 batting average and three home runs. While those numbers are likely to tail off to some degree, I do believe there is reason to believe that a lot of what Crawford is doing will be sustainable moving forward.

J.P. Crawford’s Improved Approach

Crawford has shown improved patience at the plate early in the 2022 season. After walking in 8.4 percent of his plate appearances last season, that number is up to 11.8 percent so far in 2022. He ranks in the top quarter of all hitters in walk rate this year, after finishing last year in the bottom half of the league in that category. In conjunction, he has lowered his strikeout rate from 16.6 percent (which was already solid) to 10.6 percent. He currently ranks in the top five percent of the league in strikeout rate. His strikeout to walk ratio is eighth-best among 179 qualified hitters thus far this year. Crawford’s hard-hit and barrel rates will never be confused with Mike Trout’s, but he has increased those levels as well. He has doubled his barrel percentage to five percent and improved his hard-hit percentage to 33.3 percent.

The Mariners have hit Crawford primarily in the 5-hole so far this year. While that lowers his likelihood for runs slightly, it also greatly increases his chances for RBI. Most fantasy managers would take the tradeoff. Seattle has averaged 4.7 runs per game so far this year, which feels like 10 runs per game in a normal season the way offenses are being stymied early on. If Crawford hits in the middle of the lineup all season long, he should be able to put up between 70 and 80 RBI and runs scored. The power stroke is what will determine whether this could be a true breakout campaign for Crawford, or merely an improvement for a solid ballplayer.

Can Crawford Keep It Up?

To that end, I think he will end up with closer to 10 home runs than 20 come season’s end. His HR/FB percentage had never been higher than 7.6 percent in any of his three previous seasons in Seattle. This year that number sits at 14.3. That feels like a bit of a small sample size taking effect. And while he has exhibited improved discipline, he has not really adjusted his swing path to elevate the baseball. His launch angle this year is just 10.3 degrees, which is actually lower than it had been in each year before 2021.

I do believe the 2022 version of J.P. Crawford represents a marked improvement over prior iterations. If you got him at the tail end of your draft, you are playing with house money, so continue to ride the hot hand. And he is still available in 10 percent of Fantrax leagues, so grab him if you can. Given his pedigree and current production, this could very well be a case of a once highly-touted prospect finally putting it all together. However, I think it is safe to say that Crawford will not be able to sustain his current pace as a top-10 overall hitter. In my latest rest of season rankings, I have Crawford as a top-200 hitter, and I would be comfortable starting him in most formats.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings