How J.P. added new skill to his game: Power

This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- J.P. Crawford’s strike-zone awareness prevents him from swinging at bad pitches. His discipline in doing so labors opposing pitchers into deep counts. His sternness in sticking to that approach precludes him from extended lulls at the plate. And it’s all made him an on-base machine.

But Seattle’s shortstop is leveraging a new skill that’s made him more of a threat atop the Mariners’ lineup: He’s looking to do damage, especially early.

Crawford crushed his 12th homer of 2023 on Monday against the A’s, extending his career high, and it was his fifth to lead off a game. The correlation of when and how it occurred is not a coincidence. Three of those five homers have been in a 0-0 count, and he’s belted two more on the first pitch later in games.

“That’s the best pitch you’re going to see more than half of the time, so why waste it?” Crawford said.

Early in counts, if the ball is center-cut, Crawford is swinging almost out of his shoes.

“The first few pitches, they’re more than likely going to be fastballs, so you can cheat a little bit,” Crawford said. “Sell out, and if it’s there, just don’t miss.”

Being on time for the fastball has been as key a component as any in his career year -- that, and health, after battling through significant back and knee injuries down the stretch last year as arguably the most banged-up “healthy” player on Seattle’s roster.

Crawford is slugging heaters .461 this year after a .336 mark a year ago. His run value of plus-14 against four-seamers is tied for the 10th-highest among 541 qualified hitters and way up from the minus-4 mark he posted last year. Run value is an advanced metric that determines run impact of an event based on the runners on base, outs, ball and strike count.

“This year I’ve been trying to -- not yank the ball, but setting my sights to right field, and it’s been helping me a lot,” Crawford said. “Just opening up everything earlier, so yeah, I’m not trying to slap singles anymore. I’m trying to do damage.”

When a contact specialist with plus-plus plate discipline sacrifices some of those traits for power, there can often be a conflict, as those skills can combat with each other.

A perfect example of Crawford not steering from his approach was his game-winning RBI single on Wednesday, a 66.8 mph blooper to the opposite field -- also on the first pitch -- where he was simply trying to put the ball in play.

Crawford’s 19.2% strikeout rate is his highest since 2019, yet he ranks in Statcast’s 96th percentile in chase rate. Meanwhile, he’s more than doubled his barrel rate (from 2.0% to 4.6%) and experienced a 3.7 uptick in average exit velocity, tried for fourth-highest in MLB, to 88.8 mph. He ties much of that back to the offseason work he did at Driveline Baseball.

All of this is to say that his hitting profile has become far more complete, allowing him to avoid extended valleys in his season. Since the start of July, Crawford has only once gone at least two consecutive games without a hit. Consistency correlates to clarity, which correlates to confidence.

“I'd have it for a stretch or two and then I'm back searching, back just thinking about stuff instead of hitting,” Crawford said of lulls in years past. “Right now, I'm in a good spot. I'm up there, just in a clear mind state. Everything is calm right now.”

Crawford moved into the leadoff spot permanently on May 10, after Julio Rodríguez was dropped because of extended struggles. But now, aside from a nerve issue in his left foot this week, Rodríguez is swinging the AL’s hottest bat, positioning him perfectly behind Crawford in the No. 2 hole.

“When you flip the lineup over, just personal preference, you do like a guy that can drive the ball,” manager Scott Servais said. “I did not expect J.P. to be doing it the way he's doing it this year, I've got to be honest. That home run [on Monday], like, that's a long way out there. And those are some things he could not do a couple of years ago.”

The way Crawford speaks of his approach makes it sound so simple, but staying true to it has made him so consistent.

He entered Thursday’s off-day with MLB’s fourth-best on-base percentage since the All-Star break (.438), thanks largely to a .303 batting average and 18% walk rate. But it’s the massive uptick in slugging percentage, to .484 from .395 in the first half, that’s stood out much more.