Red Sox Offseason Update: Carl Crawford

Alright, Mr. Crawford. Your turn. You at least get a second year before I go around telling people you suck. You, like John Lackey, fit into a category with Dice-K. Although this one is in good company. Josh Beckett is also in this category, as well as one or two other players. This group of people includes players who were mediocre in their first season with the Red Sox, yet had a significantly better sophomore campaign. Allow me to explain:

• Josh Beckett. Year One with the Red Sox? 16-11 with a 5.01 ERA. Seventy-four walks, eleven wild pitches, and 1.6 HR/9. Not really what we expected out of the World Series champion. But in his second year, Beckett went 20-7, had 40 walks, flirted with 200 strikeouts, cut his HR/9 in half, was an All-Star, and finished second in Cy Young voting.

• Dice-K's inaugural season in America was, well, something we would have totally expected if we'd seen him for 5 years already. He went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA, gave up 100 earned runs, 25 homers, and had a 1.32 WHIP. His next season with the Red Sox was (in some aspects) far superior - he went 18-3 with a 2.90 WHIP, giving up only 12 home runs, and led the majors with 6.9 hits per 9 IP, finishing fourth in Cy Young voting. (Strangely enough, Matsuzaka also led the American League with 94 walks and had a BB/9 ratio of FIVE, but hey...let's pretend that's not here.)

• David Ortiz wasn't really a big-name player when he arrived in Boston in 2003. He quickly made a name for himself by hitting 173 HR in his first four seasons, as well as, you know, winning us the ALCS. His 2004 season was also statistically better than his first season at Fenway. His batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, HR, walks, RBI, hits, and runs all increased, and he also won the Silver Slugger award in 2004.

Point is, I think Crawford will be fine. On a sidenote, there's no hope for Lackey, because he's sucked in his first two seasons with the Red Sox, but there's hope for Crawford. He had significantly lower totals in 2011 for hits, steals, average, and on base percentage, when compared to 8 of 9 full seasons with Tampa Bay (excluded is his rookie season, where he only played 63 games). But I'm convinced that the reason for the discrepancy is the difficulty acclimating to expecting to finish at the top of the AL East, being around the media way more often, seeing sellouts frequently, and seeing an entire pitching staff for the first time, for 18 games (the Rays). Dude's fine. If this happens again next year, then we can talk. But I'm not worried. (About Crawford, at least.)

And, as usual, huge props to Baseball-Reference. Seriously people...all you need is knowledge of baseball and numbers and you can confuse the hell out of people, too.