Serious Baseball: Projecting Coco Crisp

by Frank Bundy III
February 22, 2006

The multi-player trade that sent Coco Crisp to the Red Sox is probably one of the most scrutinized deals of the off-season. I myself commented unfavorably on the deal in the recent past. Putting my opinion of the deal aside for the moment though, I think it's only fair that I attempt to project Crisp's first season in Fenway Park.

Crisp enters the 2006 season at 26 years of age, meaning he most likely has not yet peaked as a player (most players peak around age 27-28), even if we ignore the friendly confines of Fenway Park in Boston. Here's a look at what he did in his first four seasons with the Cleveland Indians:

I draw your attention to the right hand side of that table. My preferred statistics for player evaluation — Isolated Plate Discipline (IPD), Isolated Power (ISOP), and Ball in Play Batting Average (BABIP) — have been included. However before we get started with the major league projections, we should take a look at the type of ballplayer Crisp was in the minors.

Notice the difference between his minor league IPD and the same statistic since his call-up. Some of that difference appears to be dissipating in later seasons, demonstrating some positive strides in this facet of his game. He is still adjusting to major league pitching and will eventually improve toward his minor league walk rate.

With that belief in mind, I'm projecting an IPD of .053 in 2006. Consider it the continuation of a slow upward trend in discipline as he gains experience.

Now let's take a look at Crisp's Isolated Power. His improvement in this area jumps off the page. He's hitting for far more power now than he ever did in the minors, and at the major league level his power numbers have steadily improved since his debut:

This is not uncommon for young line drive hitters. In fact it is a well-documented truth that gap hitters (and Crisp's doubles rates in the minors suggest he was always a gap hitter) tend to start exchanging line drives for home runs as they fill out. This is what is happening with Crisp.

When you combine a likely continued improvement in Crisp's power game with his new home park (one of the best HR hitting parks in baseball), his ISOP has nowhere to go but up. Crisp’s ISOP will be 0.188 in 2006. A large part of that increase will be due to an increase in his HR rate (I'm projecting 19 HRs from Crisp, up from 16 last year).

Now let's take a look at Crisp's BABIP. Like many young major leaguers, Crisp's contact hitting results have been a little less impressive since his call-up. Major league defenses are significantly better than minor league defenses so it is not uncommon to see a player’s BABIP drop a bit once they reach the big leagues, and stay down.

That having been said, it appears as though in the last couple of years Crisp has found a way to improve on his career BABIP (which is probably being unfairly biased by weak rookie and sophomore seasons). For this reason, I will not be projecting any kind of major drift back toward his career BABIP of .315.

As a hitter exchanges doubles for long balls as Crisp is doing, there usually will be a small reduction in his BABIP, and with Crisp altering his approach to handle Fenway Park, we are sure to see some small regression in this area. His BABIP will be .322 in 2006.

Lastly, let’s take a look at Crisp’s ability to steal bases.

To do this we will use SB% as our approximation for Crisp's base running skill for the moment. We can see that since he started stealing bases at the big league level he has been below average (65% — the 2005 American League SB% was 71%). In 2005, however, Crisp actually was league average in this category. He’s obviously learning to read pitchers better and get better jumps. I project Crisp to get even better in this category in 2006 to the tune of a SB percentage of 75.

As far as how many attempts Crisp will get in Boston in 2006, I project him to get 25. This projection is based on the fact that Boston’s former lead off hitter, Johnny Damon, was allowed to attempt a stolen base an average of 30 times a season in his stint there, and that their new lead off hitter, Crisp, is a worse base stealer than Damon is/was (career SB% of 79).

With 25 attempts, and a projection of being successful 75% of the time, this equates to a projected stolen base total of 19.

Now the only number left to project is Crisp’s 2006 batting average. Due to Crisp’s BABIP being basically the same in 2006 as it was in 2005, his batting average will also be projected to be nearly identical in 2006 as it was in 2005 (.300).

Now that all the numbers are figured, we just have to put them all together. Here is Crisp’s 2006 season in Boston (based on 500+ AB’s):

.294/.347/.482, 19 HR, 19 SB, 6 CS.

Just because the Red Sox gave up too much to acquire him doesn’t mean that Crisp isn’t a very good player, and that projected batting line should make it clear that he is.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.