There's been a lot of questioning of Crawford because of his shaky start with the Sox, let's analyze a few things, and people are surprisingly ready to jump ship on a fantastic player. Let's look at him for a minute, while we’re at it, let’s clear J.D. Drew of his bad name!

You cannot argue against having Crawford on your team when it comes to the player. He’s a great on both offense and defense, can hit for power, gaps, and has speed. The only thing you can argue against is whether or not he’s worth 20 million. Where not player is truly worth that much money, you can justify signings based on other signings. Perspective worth if you will.

To judge Crawford’s 20 millions you need to start by looking at why he was signed. It's easy to look at 20 million dollars and assume that you should be expecting a 30 home run guy, but that's not what the Sox signed him to be.

For 14 million dollars a year the Red Sox signed, J.D. Drew. This signing was made for his high OPS, and his defensive skills he had shown throughout his career, not for the 100RBI's he batted in the year before like many say. Modern day baseball GM’s try to stay away from RBI as a tool to figure out who to sign, because it can vary year to year, especially dependent on who is around you.

 

J.D. is not a bust, it’s easy to look at his RBI totals and proclaim that he was, but he has not been a bust. He’s given us an OPS of above .790 in every year of his contract, and in ’08 and ’09 he gave us OPS’s above .900, (to put that in perspective, Jason Werth has only cracked above an .900 OPS once in his career). In this is final year, he isn’t putting up great numbers, true, but this is expected of any long contract. J.D. has given us exactly what Theo signed him for, OPS and defense. This is why Drew gave us a good WAR if around 5, 2 out of the 4 years he played for the Red Sox.

 

Now, if we can say that Drew wasn’t a bust for 14 million, we can predict if expected contributions from Crawford makes him likely to not be worth 20 million for seven years. Expected contributions not being 20 home runs and 100 RBI’s.

To start, let’s justify the seven years. The easiest way to do this is really just to look at age, we signed J.D. for five years when he was 30, ending his contract when he’s 35. Crawford was signed for 7 years, at 29. This means if they have comparable declines, we can expect 1 more bad year from Crawford, but also 1 more good year. Crawford however, has not had the injury problems Drew had throughout his career, which may relieve him of as sharp of a decline.

Then we need to look at the 20 million, if Drew is worth 14 million, then Crawford should be worth 6 million more than him. This is pretty hard to judge up, but both Crawford and Drew were signed for OPS and defense. All the monetary amounts at the end of the comparisons are certainly up for debate, this is just how if I was a GM I’d break down the justification of the extra money.

In every field metric I’ve looked up, Crawford has been a much, much better defender than Drew throughout his career. It’s pretty decisive, who’s the better defender. We’ll say that earns him 2 million on Drew.

Crawford has a lower OPS by about 100 points than Drew throughout his Career Pre-Sox, we’ll say that, lowers him 2 million, putting him back to J.D.’s contract number.

Crawford’s WAR going into the Sox was about 36.5, Drew’s is about Pre-Sox 34.5. This is the same amount of major league seasons. We can say this gets Crawford an extra mill or so.

Crawford brings speed to the table, averaging 50 stolen bases in each healthy season (2008 he missed a large portion of the season due to injury). This should push his value up as well. I’d say this gives Crawford an extra 2 million.

This puts Crawford at most overpaid 3 million dollars in comparison to J.D. Drew. However this year Crawford was the best available outfielder on the market, having 12 more WAR over Werth, in 1 more season and he was younger. Werth’s ridiculous contract, paved the way for the market for outfielders.

In Crawford and Drew we got great players, looking beside the RBI and Home Run totals makes this clear.

 

I agree Drew was not a bust. The RS got what they expected IMHO and paid what it took to get it when they were in desperate need of it. When the book is closed on JD Drew it may well prove out that Epstein's reluctance to go 5 years initially was spot on but it was the price he paid not to play chicken with Boras and risk a huge hole in RF in 2007. So while Drew never met the RS fans expectations of what $14M would bring I do believe he met the RS expectations and that it was fair market value.

Crawford may well be different kettle of fish. I have no doubt that Carl Crawford is about what his Tampa stats say he is and that his 2010 season can be duplicated, though Fenway's RF and an increasing emergence of LH power pitching may hold back his OPS a little. That makes the fair market value at $142M a serious question unless MLB is in a high salary inflation cycle and we are in the middle or sooner of that cycle. Given overall revenue ceilings may be in place I think we are on the back end of inflationary cycles.

To me it suggests that the RS paid a premium higher than customary with a FA signing. You are dead on about Werth who better fit the RS even though he was a lesser player by the numbers. The RS needed a RF and while there organization is flush with guys with similar if not as good attributes as Crawford they lack in RH power bats. Werth was the better fit but he was over paid by a jaw dropping amount by the Nats. Scott Boras is the most predictable operator in the industry. He always plays the market long. The fact that he did not walk down the halls at the Winter Meetings to improve that offer to me says all you want to know about just how "out of market value" that contract was.

Just what the ceiling on the RS budget is and how well other existing contracts age will determine whether the RS were very wrong or more or less right to take that inflated value of the Werth contract and use at as an anchor valuation to sign CC. But you have it right, CC is over paid at least $3M more likely $5M a year.

Now that tends to mean that the topic will never die and Theo Epstein has found his next JD Drew. The one exception of course is Carl's game has flair and flash and part of JD's problem is his game looks effortless, his approach to his work has as much emotion in it as the guy who does your taxes does.

That will temper the outrage as CC hit his stride. And that may be the cruelest joke in all of this. Drew was by market valuation worth his contract for 4 of the 5 years. I don't think CC will ever be a $20M a year player.

Great OP by the way!

Just my takes.

 

The truth is, no player is worth that kind of money, in my estimation. 

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:
Well that may well be true but then again Monster seats and field boxes are not worth the price either.

Epstein expected Drew to bat 5th.  Furthermore, Drew was expected to bat 3rd or 4th if the Sox traded Manny.  Therefore, Drew did not meet Epstein's expectations regardless of what he says now. 

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:
The media said Drew was going to bat 3rd or 4th if Manny left. Look back at what Epstein was demanding for Manny after the 2006 season. There never was much of chance the RS were going to trade Ramirez was being paid once again at market value and the RS were only on the hook for two seasons and had two team options.

This in fact highlights the things that made Drew fall so short of fan expectations. The RS needed to replace Trot Nixon. Trot was called a poor man's JD Drew. They went out and spent the money to get the full priced one. They were willing to pay the price because they had a short but clear window. VTek and Schilling were ready to head into their twilights and Ortiz and Ramirez were about to begin the years of downward trajectory. The NYY were clearly in as much of a transition faze as a team with their resources is ever going to be and the Rays had not emerged.

I sincerely doubt that the RS with their ability to parse stats and spray charts ever thought a guy who had only had 100 RBI once and 30 HRs once was going to do that every year in the AL East playing 81 games in Fenway Park. Only the fans and mediots did IMHO.

Andrewmitch I will grant you this, Drew's 2007 was below Epstein's expectations but not by a margin that matter much to him given the alternatives he had available to him that winter. And over the first 3 years of the deal because this is when Epstein said he felt Drew fully met his expectations, he did.     

Who should get the revenue?  The owners?  If baseball brings in a wad of cash, why are we bashing the guys who play the game?   I don't want Warner and Henry to keep that money, they already have riches.  Seems to me the athletes earn it. 

So what is this BS attacking salaries of the guys who play for our team?   Especially when they are All Stars and Gold Glovers?

 

This post has been removed.

Comparing Crawford to Drew is not like comparing apples to apples.

It is not like comparing apples to oranges.

It is like comparing a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings to a loaf of stale bread. And you paid $100 for the loaf of bread. And it got squashed by the bagger.

Guess which one is the bread?

For the 20th Time, EPSTEIN EXPECTED Drew to bat 5th...not the media...not the fans....Theo did!!!!!

The Red Sox reached a preliminary agreement Tuesday with Drew on a contract that could bring him $70 million over the next five years. Although Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein stressed that Drew has not yet taken a physical, he told reporters that Drew is earmarked for the No. 5 spot in the batting order behind David Ortiz and Ramirez.

Furthermore:

"With David and Manny, if they want to walk those guys, we want them to pay a steep price," manager Terry Francona said.

Which means he was supposed to protect both Manny and David....He never did either.  Therefore, he did not meet expectations.

Source:  http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2687740

IMO, Drew's grand slam against Cleveland in the 2007 ALCS entirely justified his contract. Just sayin'...

Is Matthews Jr. batting fifth for his son's kickball team?

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:
So I see, where he ended up batting in the order, not what his OPS was each season, not how he shored up RF is the ultimate and final measure of his value.

I am under no dellusion that there is any argument that would ever sway you on this subject.

But if where the RS thought they might plug him in on December of 2006 is the final yardstick, let me just say since it appears you take great joy in bagging on Drew, that Carl Crawford is going to make you a very happy poster for the next 6 3/4 years IMO.

And that is the OP's point.

Only the most devoted Theo lover could continue to say Drew was a good acquisition.

I have seen so many of the stats guys, the omnipresent spin doctors, present evidence that Drew is worth what he is paid, that he is such a great fielder , he walks alot, blah, blah, blah...it is all psychobabble.

The Johnny Cochranes of the board making their case for the accused Jonathan David Drew.  If the glove does not fit , you must acquit.

But the evidence is there ( 2010 batting average -.255, 2011 batting average .232....highest RBI total in a Red Sox uniform- pathetic 68-twice). His stats are getting worse and worse ever year he is in a Boston uniform.

THE GLOVE FITS....HE IS GUILTY AS CHARGED.

Case closed, next case.

Give me a break, drew has greatly under performed his entire contract.  he has been borberline terrible and every true sox fan wishes he were on the yankees.  68 rbis??? suppoesed to be a 5 hole hitter, the guys a joke. drew was expected to hit 275 with at least 90 rbis... he blows a bag of d!CKS
Crawford may not live up to the expectations of a $20 mill player, but he will be much much better than drew.  As we can see so far this guy will hit and wreak havoc on the base paths.  i don't care if crawford doesn't earn 20 mill a year type numbers as long as he is considered by all a great player.  His month of may has shown what he can do, he will be a great player.  Drew was never a good player.  Drew had 1 good month in a 5 year contract????  drew is terrible.  He's always been bad and only the biggest theo butt buddies defend drew.

RE:  OPS....we've been through this...OPS is misleading...not only does it NOT take into account VARIATION but it is based on an aggregrate of 2 aggregrates..........Drew's OPS is articifically high because with the OBP piece, it is driven mostly by BB's and a lack of PA's and with the SLG % piece it is driven largey by his doubles (Not HR's or Triples) and his lack of AB's - due to BB's and time off).................

OBP is a huge factor and it is surprising that so many fans of a team that lives by the principle that outs are your most valuable commodity in baseball don't get that number of times you don't make an out is very high on the value chain indeed. Or that doubles aren't very important, 2nd is scoring position after all.

Hey nothing beats a HR but do you really think the RS went into this knowing his spray chart, his career production to that point and the dimensions of their home field that he was going to every hit 30 for them?

And most of all the time missed is my favorite Drew bashers line. Coming into this year Drew played in 3 less games than the warrior Kevin Youkilis had from the time JD joined the team until the start of this season.

The point of the OP was that Crawford parallels Drew in many of the things that feed Drew bashing. He is never going to be 100 RBI guy probably, he certainly won't do it every year. LH pitchers give both of them fits. Crawford will probably never hit 30 HR.

It is a good premise that the OP presents and certainly provides a change up fro the abudance of threads trying rip Ellsbury, Lowrie, Wakefield and kicking Dice K while he is down.

Nothing like a Drew roast on Memorial Day on BDC. What amazes me is everybody in RS almost universally loved Nixon who had every one of JD's flaws on most were magnified and shared most of JD's attributes but none were as good. And that included games not played.

Party on, don't let me interrupt the roast with common accepted stats. But the next time you see a certain poster trying to claim only people of color get ripped in this town, please share your best Drew blasts.

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:


The RS didn't need a RFer, Katz. They had Drew for another year and Kalish/Reddick on the cusp. They filled the LF position. Moon's stance as to how much of a need it was is up for question.
I thought it was the obvious position to fill to compensate for lost offense at catcher.

The OP's intent is to show an analogy in an attempt to quantify how we value players. First of all, Drew wasn't gonna opt out of his Dodger contract for under 3 mil more. It's debateable who is the better fielder. Drew has much better instincts. Crawford has the speed. What the OP misses is how other intangibles in CC's game come into play. Like the pressure he puts on opposing pitchers/defense. But most importantly, the speed tandem it gives Boston. That makes for unrelenting pressure - especially in close games. How do you price that?

Drew doesn't bring those intangibles. Thus, the comparison is weak. And so is the $$$ analogy given the circumstances at the time of each signing. It's hard to justify paying any individual 140 mil. It's even harder to draw an acurate analogy.

While not making an out is critical there are times when taking the bat off your shoulder is more important - like when there are 2 outs and ducks on the pond - something Drew is terrible at.....

RE:  OPS...if you think OPS is a critical stat then you really don't understand statstics that well...again, it is based on an aggregate of 2 aggregates and both of the those aggregates don't take into account variation.  Furthermore, one of those aggregates is a hits + walks.....Drew's OBP is high b/c of walks, not hits.....And even though you were taught in Little League that a walk is a good as a hit, it is not.  You can not drive in a runner from 2b with a BB......Again, you must DIG DEEPER than OPS.....

Player A

Game 1 0 fo 4

Game 2 4 for 4

Game 3 0 for 4

Game 4 4 for 4

Player B

Game 1 2 for 4

Game 2 2 for 4

Game 3 2 for 4

Game 4 2 for 4

Both have a .500 BA but they are 2 different players.......AVERAGES (aka AGGREGATES) do not take into account variation.  Consistency is critical. And Drew ain't got it.  And OPS will never allow you to understand consistency....

OPS

Player 1 OPS 900 - 350 OBP and 550 SLG

Player 2 OPS 450 OBP and 450 SLG

Which one would you want? 

Drew is more like Player 2......

At the very least look at SLG% and OBP% separately.......will give you a better picture of true performance...OPS is like a Reader's Digest stat to dumb all the detail down for the average fan.......

Nuff said......

I have little more to say on this topic Drew isn't a bust.
Just like to go through a few things:

"Comparing Drew and Crawford is apples to oranges"
No it isn't. Both Drew and Crawford play OF, are among the top the defensive OFers, and have high OPS year in and year out without hitting a 30-40 home runs.

"Drew has a low BA."
Drew has a high OBP.

"Drew has a low RBI total."
Drew's low BA but high OBP points him to scoring runs, instead of scoring in other players. Which leads me to my next point...

"Drew was signed to hit 5th."
This is a moot point, you can eartag about where you expect a player to hit, but the player not hitting there doesn't make him a bust. A good lineup caters to the hitters hitting in it, in a lineup of about all equal players, it makes sense to bat Drew the 5th spot, however in the top heavy lineup the Sox had for years, we should've been batting drew second or leadoff in '08 and/or '09 (I believe there was only a short week where he was), his high OBP and ability to slug the ball for doubles when he does hit (as a previous poster tried to use against him) makes him a perfect man to be scored by the Ortiz's, Manny's, and Youk's that we had on the team.

"Drew had one good month for us. Other than that he didn't bat .275"
Wrong, Drew had 2 great years for us in '08 and '09 with OPS's above .900, and he batted above .270 every year for us except this year and last year.

Final Statement, contracts are not made with the expectation that every year will be great for the team. J.D. had great years for us in '08 and '09, and good years for us in '07 and '10. It only appears this last year will be one where decline was enough that he will not be helpful for the team, and therefore was a good contract for the Red Sox.

andrew, I think you'll find there is a higher correlation between a team's OBP and their runs scored than there is between their SLG% and their runs scored.

You can't score if you don't get on base.

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:
Much of the premise Moon presents is that we had Cameron. I think the RS confidence in Cameron was defined first by the Crawford signing and punctuated by Reddick not just being called up but played against Detroit in the last two games.

Perhaps I should have said that the RS needed a RF by 2012 and need a RH power bat to augment what they were short of at the AAA level. In 2011 they needed to improve their OF if they were going to bring their offense down to league average or below at catcher.

As for speed, I happen to agree it has a real value. I am surprised or didn't notice your bringing this same passion to a defense of Ellsbury's hard to quantify value in the past. Moon certainly seemed to minimize it.

While there are obvious details that vary between the two players (Drew's defense because of where he plays both position and home dimension make his defense more valuable than the occasional gap web-gem you can get with CC and CCs speed is different than Drew's astute base running. Drew is better judge of balls and strikes and therefore will keep the "line moving' more often.

That wasn't the point I saw in the OP. These are two guys that in the minds of fans were signed to the big money. Neither will likely deliver 100 RBI or 30 HRs a year. Both find LH pitching to be like kryptonite. Both are likely to be seen as failing to deliver on their contracts. And what you can't measure is a hard way to prove them wrong BTW. Defending Drew while futile as this thread will porve out before it joins the other 25,982 Drew blows threads, at least it has tradition stats to be poo-poed. 

If you get past the nuances they are very similar signings in the context of how fans will preceive them and honestly Crawford is probably over compensated even for a rich club like the RS.

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:


I guess it's more important to draw a walk then to knock the ball out of the park???......The most productive hitters are the ones who can drive THEMSELVES in.....

In Response to Re: Crawford will not be a bust, just like J.D. Drew was not a bust!:

No team is going to need (or ever have) a 1-9 of 30 home run hitters. Instead you need a solid core of players that can hit home runs, and the rest capable of getting on base to be able to bring those hitters back up in dangerous situations. Drew did that for us for years.