Brandon Crawford, SS, San Francisco Giants
The slow start
After a disappointing year at the plate in 2017, Crawford had a hard time building momentum in April. His first 97 plate appearances of 2018 led to a .189/.237/.300 line with a .227 wOBA and 42 wRC+.
He did have a 40.3% fly-ball rate and 33.3% hard-hit rate during this time, but it also included a 20.0% infield-fly rate and 41.9% ground-ball rate. So, it’s not overly shocking that he owned a .111 ISO and .246 BABIP.
The recovery
We just finished talking about Brandon Belt‘s huge start to this year, but Crawford is doing his best to catch up at the moment.
It’s taken just 85 plate appearances for the veteran shortstop to post a 213 wRC+ off the strength of a .449/.471/.667 triple slash. Many will look to that .508 BABIP and say he’s due for regression, though, which is obviously true.
However, he’s put himself in a position to watch his stats overcorrect in this way. His line-drive rate (36.9%) is currently higher than his ground-ball rate (35.4%), while his soft-hit rate (20.6% in April, 12.1% in May) and hard-hit rate (33.3% in April, 43.9% in May) have seen drastic improvements.
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