That’s J.P. Crawford
Sometimes you lose what actually happened in looking for predicting what’s next.
J.P. Crawford has six career grand slams and that feels like an undercount.
They’re all in a Mariners uniform. Officially.
The first one actually came in the Seattle Steelheads fit, though of course not this year’s model. Tom Murphy was on third and Jake Bauers was on second and Dylan Moore was on first.
It was 2021 and a Saturday evening like last night, but in front of a scattered 14,772 fans as baseball was only phasing more dense crowds back in after the more full-fledged quarantine.
Under 15,000 for that, over 43,00 for the walk-off knock last night—and if not everyone knew some kind of RBI was coming, it was at least 35,000 who did.
That’s around the population of Wenatchee or Mount Vernon or University Place that completely knew for sure J.P. was going to come through, but not counting people actually in those exotic locales.
That’s who John Paul Crawford is, that’s what he does.
Since his breakthrough season of 2021, here’s his overall wRC+ by year and his high-leverage wRC+ by year.
Aaaaand here’s how he ranks among the big-time regulars who tend to come up in these spots—guys who, since 2021, have at least 250 plate appearances therein.
Going back up to the chart before this one, specifically to 2024, that’s why a lot of folks tend not to care too much about high-leverage splits.
They’re not meaningfully predictive, not when you take everyone into account. Just because a guy comes through in the clutch one year or one game or somewhere in between, it doesn’t mean he’s going to keep on doing that.
J.P. Crawford had a 191 wRC+ in high-leverage spots in 2023 and a 78 wRC+ in 2024 and a 210 wRC+ last year.
Is it more likely he’ll be great in big spots in 2026? Or is he bound to snap back in some kind of every-other-year cycle? Shouldn’t he still be above his overall line?
We have no idea!
Well, we probably do. But we couldn’t prove it. All we know is what we’ve seen, though what we’ve seen is an awful lot.
And in an effort to prove what’s a real signal, we don’t adequately enjoy the noise.
J.P. Crawford revels in the noise, the chants.
J.P.
J.P.
J.P.
Go M’s.