Player Profile: Coco Crisp

Forever immortalized for his role in helping the Red Sox to the World Series championship, Coco Crisp has been a hot topic this offseason before he settled on an unexpected return to the Athletics (Buster Olney is reporting it’s a 2-year deal for $14 million). The question we must consider in the fantasy game is how heavily do we want to lean on an outfielder who is 32 years old who last appeared in 140 games during the 2007 season.

Let’s start the analysis by focusing on the last line in the previous paragraph. Crisp hasn’t been able to stay healthy in the recent past. Not only has it been five years since he’s appeared in 140 games, it’s actually much worse than that. Sure Crisp appeared in 136 games for the Athletics last season, but in the previous two seasons he appeared in 49 and 75 games. Moreover, over his last four seasons he’s averaged just 95 games played per season or less than two thirds of a full season. To put that number into perspective the perpetually injured J.D. Drew has averaged 117 games played the past four years. Obviously you have to know that rostering Crisp comes with substantial risk because even if he performs well. He’s not someone you can count on playing every day.

Crisp also isn’t a very good hitter. The owner of a career .275 batting average, Crisp has failed to reach that level in four of the past six seasons. Given that his batting average is barely better than the league batting mark, it would be a great thing if he had a lot of power. However, he’s got about as much power as an 18 year old prom queen. Crisp has a career best of 16 homers, though that was a lifetime ago in 2005. Since that point he’s played six seasons and not a single time has he hit more than eight homers. Obviously it stands to reason that he’s not much of a run producer either, and the record bears that out. Crisp hasn’t had even 60 RBI in any of the last four seasons, and five times in the last six years he’s failed to reach that total. Does he score a bushel of runs? Think again. Crisp has scored more than 80 runs twice, but the last time he did that was 2007, as injuries simply preclude him from being on the field enough to rack up the counting numbers. Over the past four years the fleet of foot outfielder has averaged a mere 51 runs scored per season. That’s terrible. Crisp also owns a .330 OBP for his career, which is league average. The last time he posted an OBP of .350 was — well never since his career best mark was .345 in 2005.

So Crisp is league average in batting average and OBP, is a terrible power hitter, rarely knocks runners in, and doesn’t score as many runs as he should since he is always in an out of the lineup.

So why even other with him? It’s all about the speed with Crisp as his wheels are the only thing that gives him any value in the fantasy game. Oddly, Crisp has become a more prolific base stealer as he has aged. From 2003-2009 Crisp stole at least 13 bags with a high of 28 thefts in 2007. However, he joined the A’s and stared running like he was Ricky Henderson Jr.. Crisp stole 32 bags in just 75 games in 2010 before exploding for 49 thefts last year to lead the American League (he tied with Brett Gardner). There are a few reasons to be concerned about a repeat.

(1) Players just don’t start running heavily while in their early 30′s. It’s extremely rare that a player continues to build his steal totals in his 30′s.

(2) There is the health of Crisp to worry about. With his propensity to come down injured, it’s tough to count on the steals piling up.

(3) He gets on base at a leave average rate. If he got on base more frequently he would obviously have a better chance to swipe a bag, but he doesn’t so he has to run a good portion of the time that he reaches base.

(4) His owns history shows that from 2003-10 he averaged 21 steals a season. How he’s jacked up that number to an average of 41 steals the last two seasons is somewhat of a mystery given his advancing age.

There’s nothing wrong with drafting Crisp to add some speed to your club. If he can stay healthy there’s a reasonable expectation that he’ll swipe at least 25 bags. However, expecting 45 or even 35 could be  asking too much from an injury prone an aging player. Given that he brings little else to the table other than steals, you’d be wise to avoid getting into a bidding war to obtain his services.

By Ray Flowers

The Day in Baseball – April 15

Today is a special day as every player in baseball will be wearing the number 42 as a tribute to Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in major league baseball. A year ago I wrote my thoughts down about Jackie Robinson – how special a person he was, and what his lasting legacy would be. It’s still as poignant today as it was then. Here is the link to Here’s to You Mr. Robinson.

Jacoby Ellsbury can’t take deep breaths without having a sharp pain in his side. I’m no doctor, but that sounds like a serious issue with his rib cage. That return date of Friday isn’t going to happen. Ellsbury will go for more tests on Friday to determine what’s going on and if a DL stint is needed.

Jose Guillen is a man on a mission. Whether that mission is to return to relevance on the ball field, to work his way out of Kansas City, or just to be healthy again, Guillen is making noise. He has certainly placed his stamp on the season having gong deep in each of the past four games with a total of five homers and eight RBI. Don’t forget that Guillen has gone deep at least 20 times in each of his last five healthy seasons during which time he has averaged 92 RBI a season (he had only 241 at-bats in 2006 and just 281 last season). As for the last part, he obviously seems healthy, a fact that he no longer takes for granted after he literally feared for his life this offseason because of blood clots. “The doctor started talking about dying,” he said. “I didn’t even know what a blood clot was. It was so bad that I couldn’t feel my legs.” You can read more about the harrowing experience at Guillen Almost Died.

Francisco Liriano looked like the “old” Liriano today. He threw seven shutout innings against the Red Sox striking out eight. If he throws strikes this season, he could have a ton of success given that he has rediscovered about three mph on his fastball and some bite on that once nasty slider.

Bud Norris – that’s a young arm I really like. He may struggle at times since he really doesn’t have a third pitch, but when he is on, he can dominate batters. He did just that on Thursday allowing the Cardinals only a single unearned run in five innings. He whiffed nine in the victory.

I was pleasantly surprised today watching Scott Olsen pitch today. I know he gave up four runs in 5.2 innings to the Phillies, but he actually pitched much better than that – though I still wouldn’t count on him to be effective enough to be a weekly option in NL-only league. At the same time, I wasn’t at all impressed by J.A. Happ who continues to work with a massive rabbit’s foot in his pocket. Somehow he didn’t allow an earned runs despite walking six batters in 5.1 innings. He’s walked eight guys in 10.1 innings this season yet he owns a 1.65 ERA. Just like I said last year, a correction is a coming.

David Ortiz is hitting .154 with 13 Ks in 26 at-bats, and all you hear about is the fact that he could be the worst hitter in the history of baseball, which makes me wonder – why is it that J.D. Drew is basically getting a pass despite being just as awful (.143 with 13 Ks in 28 at-bats)?

I’m totally shocked that Jeff Suppan gave up four runs in five innings in his season debut. Actually the only shock is that it was only four runs.

Carlos Zambrano threw 123 pitches today — and only lasted five innings. Besides the stupidity of allowing anyone to throw that many pitches in just five innings, how could anyone let someone do that in the second week of the regular season? And people say that Dusty Baker abuses his pitchers.

By Ray Flowers