Carl Crawford plays the outfield for the Tampa Bay Rays. Crawford came up at a young age, seasonal age 20, which in general is a good sign for players. His first four seasons, however, he posted a rather low OBP, with a slash line of .289/.320/.421. That improved the last four years, during his peak, with a .301/.349/.453 slash line.

I’ve talked a bit in this series about an old Bill James concept, batting average as a percentage of offense. Basically, think of a rectangle with OBP as the length of one side and slugging percentage as the length of the other. For Carl’s first four years, the area of that rectangle would be .135, and during the last four seasons, .158. So Carl has expanded his offense. The percent based on hits is 53% in the most recent quartet of seasons, compared to 79% in the previous four. So Carl not only improved his batting average, he also became less dependent on it to generate offense. One of the striking things about his 2009 season was his increase in walks. During his first six full seasons, Crawford’s walks wound up between 26 and 37. Last season they jumped to 51. Nice to see him learning to be a bit more selective.

Carl adds to his offense with a superb stolen base percentage, 81.9%. He cracked the 50 stolen base level five times in his career, setting a career high with 60 stolen bases in 2009. He also set a career high with 16 caught stealings.

Finally, Crawford is an excellent defender. He had some injury issues in 2007, but his return to form in 2008 was a big contributor to the improved Rays defense and their run for the AL Pennant. Tampa Bay exercised their second club option on him this season, giving them likely high value performance for $10 million. He’ll be a free agent after this season, however, and likely highly sought after. People will watch the Rays this season to see if they sign Carl to an extension, or possibly trade at the deadline.