MLB: 5 overvalued/undervalued players entering 2015

OF Carl Crawford Los Angeles Dodgers

Contract: 7 years, $142 million ($ 20.285 million/year)

Carl Crawford’s contract sticks out like a sore thumb on the curriculum vitae of then-Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, now the president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs. Nearly every other large deal Epstein has made in his career has turned into gold. Crawford’s contract, eh, not so much.

The good news is that his replacement, Ben Cherington, was able to pawn it off to the overenthusiastic Dodgers’ brand new ownership group—whose most visible and known face in the sports world is and was Earvin “Magic” Johnson—in  the blockbuster trade with the Dodgers which also sent Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett to Los Angeles.

In fairness to Crawford, his on-base percentage in the two seasons since he was dealt to the Dodgers has been .329 and .339. That’s respectable. It’s significantly better than what he produced in his two seasons with Boston.

But he played in just 116 and 105 games, respectively, over the past two years. Those numbers alone make him less valuable. The Dodgers have platooned their outfielders for the majority of those two seasons. But using a platoon system involving a player making north of $20 million should be out of the question.

Instead it’s been their best bet to stave off injuries—hoping to prevent them—in addition to long-standing slumps, of which there have been many for Dodgers outfielders.

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