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June 13, 2007

Player Profile

Bobby Crosby

by Marc Normandin

Bobby Crosby had some big shoes to fill when he was first brought up to the Athletics to take over at shortstop. Miguel Tejada—the Most Valuable Player award winner and a productive player for Oakland over the years—had jumped ship to sign with Baltimore, and Crosby was given the job of replacing him after a breakout year in Triple-A. Despite some initial promise, Crosby has yet to really put it together, and is worse off than ever during the current season. What went wrong with Crosby, or was there never really anything going right in the first place?

Robert Edward Crosby, son of former major leaguer Ed Crosby, was drafted by the Oakland Athletics out of Long Beach State University back in 2001. This was the second time he was chosen, as the Anaheim Angels had picked Crosby in the 34^th round in 1998. The A's made him the 25^th overall selection, and sent him directly to High-A Modesto that same season. A hip flexor injury kept his playing time down to only 38 at-bats. He would split the subsequent 2002 season between Modesto and Double-A Midland.

Baseball America was excited about Crosby's future, saying he was on the fast track to the majors in their team draft review. They ranked him the system's fifth-best prospect in what was, looking back, a very stacked system. Carlos Pena, Eric Byrnes, Crosby, Mark Ellis, Jeremy Bonderman, Aaron Harang, and Rich Harden were among the future major leaguers, and were all in the top thirty for the 2002 Athletics. The only concern about Crosby was his defense—due to his size and the rough time he had bending for grounders, neither the A's nor Baseball America were sure if he would be able to stick at shortstop. However, the line that sticks out from that time is, "Crosby has the potential to become a big-time hitter for a middle infielder."

Year Team          AB   AVG/ OBP/ SLG  XBH%  ISO  2B+3B  BB%    K%
2002 Modesto(A+)  280  .307/.393/.404   24% .097   19   10.2%  13.3%
2002 Midland(2A)  228  .281/.335/.443   36% .162   16    7.6%  16.3%

At Modesto, Crosby hit for average, but displayed almost no power whatsoever. He did show very good control of the strike zone though, with a walk rate over 10 percent and a strikeout rate not too much higher than that. At Midland, Crosby hit a few homers and improved his Isolated Power, but his walks dropped off a few percentage points while his strikeouts jumped by three percent. The one worry I have looking back is that his BABIP at this time was much higher than it has been in the major leagues for him. At Midland this was not as much of an issue—.317 is high for Crosby after generating a .281 career mark in the majors so far—but at Modesto he sported a .357 BABIP, well above anything he has done or should do given his batted-ball figures. It's much easier to generate higher BABIP numbers in the minor leagues, thanks to the inferior quality of the pitching and defense. this is probably what Crosby was doing.