When Carl Crawford becomes a free agent for the first time in his career this offseason, he’s going to want a large contract.
Thanks to Desmond Jennings, the Rays are capable of replacing much of his production at a fraction of the potential cost of retaining his services.
Once the laughingstock of baseball, the Rays have transformed their franchise in large part thanks to a bountiful farm system. All-star caliber players such as Crawford, Evan Longoria, David Price, and James Shields were all drafted and developed by the Rays, and form the nucleus of today’s talented Rays team.
But while the Rays have excelled at adding young players, they’ve never before been in a situation like they are now with Crawford, as no player the Rays have ever lost to impending free agency has left as big a void as the absence of Crawford threatens to.
Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff were great players, but both were near the end of their careers with Tampa Bay, and their departures did not have a significant impact on the franchise.
The Rays avoided this scenario with Scott Kazmir by signing him to a long-term deal when he was young, then trading him while his value was still relatively high.
And while Aubrey Huff and Julio Lugo were solid complementary pieces, they left before the Rays were a competitive team, and neither was close to being an irreplaceable asset.
Few players in history have proven to be the all-around threat Crawford has been during the first eight seasons of his career. Since Crawford’s first full season in 2003, the speedy outfielder has averaged a .298 batting average, 12 home runs, 68 RBIs and 49 stolen bases per year. He’s played in fewer than 140 games during a season just once during that span, and has been elected to four All-Star teams.
According to Baseball Reference’s Similarity Scores, the player Crawford most resembles to this point in his career is Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente.
It would be unreasonable to expect any player to completely reproduce Crawford’s stellar production –much less a 23-year-old rookie who recorded his first major league hit just this Saturday. But if any young player can come close to matching Crawford’s unique skill set, it’s Jennings.
A 10th-round pick in the 2006 draft, Jennings has proven to be a huge steal for the Rays, who have a history of drafting athletic outfielders. In 1,581 career minor league at-bats, Jennings has hit for a .299 average, 29 home runs, 92 doubles and a whopping 171 stolen bases, all while reaching base at a .384 clip. Jennings is also a gifted defensive outfielder, and while Crawford has spent most of his career as a left-fielder, Jennings should man center field for the foreseeable future.
The one area where Jennings can’t compete with Crawford is durability. Jennings has had a difficult time staying on the diamond, and has already been hampered by injuries to his back, shoulder and wrist in his short career.
Jennings’ great eye, developing power and game-changing speed give him limitless potential if he can stay on the field, though, and he has all the tools necessary to become a future star. Baseball America ranked Jennings as the sixth-best prospect in all of baseball before the season, and the Rays gave him his first taste of major league action by promoting him on Sept. 1.
Thanks to a small payroll and unfavorable home ballpark, it’s widely acknowledged that the Rays face an uphill climb in re-signing Crawford, their franchise’s first homegrown star. Big-market teams like the Yankees, Angels and Red Sox are all lacking long-term solutions in left field, which doesn’t help the Rays’ odds of retaining Crawford either.
But if Jennings’s talent and track record hold true, the Rays can do more than just survive the loss of Crawford. They could get even better.
