I’m Buying Low On Allen Craig
After being traded, changing leagues and posting his worst major league season of his career, a reasonable person may ask why on earth I’d be buying Allen Craig. His current .237/.291/.348 equates to a brutal 81 wRC+ and he’s still on the disabled list to boot. We can address the DL issue first, as the Boston Red Sox may activate him as soon as Friday. With that out of the way, on to the (potentially over the top) optimism!
The 30-year-old first baseman/outfielder’s rate stats are clearly way off, however many of his peripherals appear to be in line with his career averages.
| K% | BB% | Swing% | Contact% | SwStr% | BABIP | GB% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 6.5% | 19.4% | 46.3% | 84.1% | 7.2% | .281 | 56.3% |
| Career | 7% | 18.3% | 45.6% | 82.8% | 7.7% | .330 | 46.6% |
Clearly the biggest outliers are Craig’s BABIP and ground ball rate. After never hitting grounders more than 45% of the time, this season he is burning worms at the 12th highest clip in baseball. The shift in batted ball rates can be better seen by his career 1.53 GB/FB ratio versus his 2.34 this year. Perhaps most curiously — at least to a nerd like me — is given what we know about ground balls and BABIP, Craig could be reasonably expected to hit for a higher batting average (and a lower slugging) given the rate he is burning worms.
Displayed below is the batted ball splits (for batting average) for Craig. For context I ran the 2010-2014 league averages through a weighted mean calculator with AVG and AB as the weights and values.
| Pull | Center | Opposite | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | .267 | .258 | .379 |
| Career | .364 | .360 | .367 |
| Lge Avg 2010-14 | .341 | .328 | .293 |
Pulling the ball tends to serve hitters well and for his career, Craig is no different. On top of pulling the ball, he also goes the to the opposite field and to center with better than average results. In fact, since 2010 Craig’s .367 AVG going the other way rates as 27th best in baseball and his .360 AVG to center ranks 70th (minimum 300 PAs). Diving in a bit deeper into the batted ball splits it does seem Craig has pulled the ball less frequently this season.
| Pull% | Center% | Oppo% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 28.3% | 25% | 25.6% |
| Career | 31.8% | 28.2% | 19.8% |
We try not to glance at BABIP alone, shrug, and say “oh, he’ll be fine.” That being said, Craig doesn’t appear to be swinging at everything and what he does swing at, his contact rate this year is actually higher than his career average. From what the stats can tell us, Craig has been unfortunate when pulling the ball or hitting it up the middle. His ground balls have eyes,it’s just rather than sneaking through the infield they seem to be finding their way into gloves. I don’t expect that trend to continue for the rest of this season nor next year. Craig is available in 40% of both Yahoo! and CBS formats as well as over 55% of ESPN leagues. I’m buying him for help at my outfield but he can be plugged into 1B/CI as well. Count on his average coming around and him becoming very useful for these last seven+ weeks. Fenway should work out nicely for Craig as I expect him to hit doubles off the monsters and given how frequently he hits the opposite field, maybe even a triple or two to right-center field.
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not sure where he’ll play, Cespedes anywhere but LF would be a mistake
Supposedly the Sox will play Cespedes in LF and Allen in RF. Having his range in Fenway’s right fan is a terrifying prospect.
I think he might also snare some starts at 1B and DH as well down the stretch.
I’m figuring on him getting time at 1B, DH and some in the OF.
He’s not been burning worms; He’s been petting them. Looking forward to hit velocity becoming public. Anyway, he’s an incredibly skilled hitter, but until he’s healthy enough to handle the inner-half of the plate, it’s not going to be pretty. Buy-low in 2015? Absolutely. The rest of 2014, not on my dime.
That’s the one thing I couldn’t really have to back up my claim, his contact quality. I don’t really trust LD% and without knowing if he’s just making weak contact on his grounders or not, it’s hard to say. Maybe a Cardinals fan could better speak on that.
That would be me!
How much does it cost for you to fill a roster spot? Because for many people that’s all it would cost, in which case it really is about a dime.
I mean, if it’s a deep league and you have a roster spot with nothing at all worthwhile occupying it, sure. I just don’t expect much for the remainder of 2014, and I’m a huge fan of the guy in general.
Don’t we have to consider the possibility that the reason his BABIP is low is that he’s not only hitting way more grounders, but he’s also hitting *weak* grounders? Maybe this doesn’t hold up statistically, but I’d be willing to claim that such a large unintentional change in batted ball mix is the result of making consistently weaker contact, which could turn line drives into ground balls and well-hit ground balls into dribblers.
Right, see my comment above to a_fink: we just don’t know if he’s making weak contact or not. There is “well-hit average” but Inside Edge doesn’t make that kind of stuff public.
Less pulling, less power and lower average– really since about mid-2013. Perhaps it as attributable to a foot injury in September, 2013. Perhaps it is due to a conscious effort go the opposite way more. Perhaps it is just inevitable aging. In any case, Craig will need to get back to his 2012 approach if he is to return to a +WAR form.
The thing with Craig is that it is very likely he has been playing with an injury most of the year. Is he fully healthy now?
I read an article, maybe on here, that said Craig was having trouble making solid contact on inside fastballs, which can help to explain the drop in pull%.
The Red Sox may choose to rest him some days since they are out of. Also, Allen Craig does not have the upside of say a Joey Votto or a Josh Hamilton.
I would given Craig a week to see what he does then make a decision.
cool, but in most leagues, you probably wont have a week to make a decision
Using baseballheatmaps.com’s leaderboards, Craig’s HR+FB distance is about the same as it was in 2012 (slightly better actually) and a good bit better than it was in 2013. That seems to support that the skills are still there too.
Not necessarily. He’s hit so few home runs this season that contacting some authoritatively would make the average look better. Craig isn’t just hitting fewer fly-balls, his HR/FB% is nearly half of what it was in 2011/2012.
Ground balls go for hits more often than fly-balls, so that really shouldn’t be burying his BABIP. His LD% has declined from 2013, which would hurt his BABIP, but Craig is still well below what he produced in previous seasons with more similar line drive rates. In previous FanGraphs articles it was suggested that his bat speed is well down from what it had been, which is why he was struggling with inside fastballs and making much weaker contact.
Skills aren’t gone, just his bat speed
imo sox should just shut him down for the season and let him get healthy for next year. seems like he’s been hiding or playing through something all season
Red Sox starting OF next year should be Mookie Betts in CF with Cespedes in LF and Shane Victorino in RF. That will leave plenty of room for a 4th OFer. Unfortunately, due to Craig’s defensive limitations and his right-handedness he does not slot in as a platoon player. So in all likelihood most of his playing time will be as a utility player filling in at LF, 1B, DH and pinch hitting. He should get enough at bats to rebuild his value, and he should LOVE the green monster.
I’m hoping the Red Sox sell high on Brock Holt (blasphemy, I know) and then use Craig and Mookie to split the super-sub role (Mookie at the up-the-middle positions, and Craig at the corner positions). Given the high likelihood of either injury, or a continuing offensive slump from either JBJ or Bogaerts, both those guys should get plenty of playing time.
Not to mention the very real chance that Victorino isn’t able to play everyday at right field, even at just 80-90% of his norm.
You’d think with a BB% of 19.4 and a BB/K of nearly 3 he’d be worth a little more via wOBA.