Allen Craig's Bizarre, Historic Decline Could Be on Upswing in the Minors

Allen Craig has undergone one of the steepest nosedives ever witnessed in Major League Baseball.

It also seems to be one of the most unexpected.

There was no significant, career-threatening injury to precede it. Nor were there indicators or red flags warning of one of the game’s best hitters completely bottoming out to the point that no team is willing to give him a job on its 40-man roster.

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Yet there Craig sits, a player who should be in the meat of his prime, trying to find his former self in the Boston Red Sox’s minor league system, axed from their roster after of one of the most bizarre, but possibly explicable, falls from grace the sport has ever seen.

“Has there ever been a guy who went from being one of the best hitters in baseball to one of the worst that quickly?” a scout recently wondered while talking with the Boston Globe's Alex Speier.

Well, no. There actually has not. The only somewhat educated guess at what sank Craig is a lack of consistent, healthy at-bats, a hypothesis that can be formed by observing his early results at Triple-A Pawtucket.

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Allen Craig rips a two-out hit in first; is 5-for-8 in series and 13-40 w #PawSox. Just underway in Louisville

— PawSox (@PawSox) May 24, 2015"

The St. Louis Cardinals drafted Craig in the eighth round in 2006, and he modestly debuted for them in 2010, compiling a 92 OPS+ in 124 plate appearances. He started forcing people to notice the following year as he hit .315/.362/.555 with a .917 OPS in 219 plate appearances. In the postseason, he hit four home runs—three in the World Series, including one in Game 7—and had a 1.013 OPS.

That season established Craig as an everyday player for the Cardinals, but offseason knee surgery forced him to miss the start of the 2012 campaign. He did not lose a step when he returned, hitting 22 home runs, driving in 92 runs and posting a .307/.354/.522 line with an .876 OPS.

He finished 19th in National League MVP voting, prompting the Cardinals to extend him a five-year, $31 million contract as he entered his age-28 season. At the time, the deal was seen as extremely team-friendly, assuming, of course, Craig continued to produce.

He did in the first year of the pact, making his first All-Star team and finishing 18th in MVP voting. A Lisfranc foot fracture kept him out of most of that year’s playoffs, but he returned for the World Series against the Red Sox and hit .375.

From 2011 to 2013, Craig put up a 136 OPS+, according to Baseball-Reference.com. That number put him among the game’s best hitters and appeared to make him a financial bargain for the Cardinals going forward.

However, the foot injury lingered into 2014 and severely hindered his production. After disappointing for nearly 400 plate appearances that season, the Cardinals included him and Joe Kelly in a deadline-day trade to the Red Sox. But the foot landed Craig on the disabled list as soon as he arrived, and upon his return he continued to struggle in 107 plate appearances with Boston.

This season started with a healthy Craig, but he was no better with the bat. He failed to find consistent playing time in a crowded outfield, making just eight starts and hitting .135 in 59 plate appearances.

On May 10, the team optioned him to Pawtucket, and he cleared waivers eight days later. He found himself off the 40-man roster, and the $26.5 million still owed to him at the start of the season was suddenly burdensome, as no team was willing to claim him at that price.

“It might be tough to grind through the initial phase of it, but we felt it was a good move in the long run and it still is,” Red Sox assistant general manager Mike Hazen told the Boston Globe’s Julian Benbow of trading for Craig. “It hasn’t gone for him the way anybody wants it to go.”

It has gone historically bad, in fact. Speier did some digging at Baseball-Reference and discovered that Craig’s slide is unmatched.

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

There have been 120 players in major league history to have three consecutive seasons with at least a 125 OPS+ between age 26 and 28 (minimum 200 plate appearances per season). Craig is one of them with that 136 mark.

Of those players, Craig has had the steepest drop in his age-29 and age-30 seasons—his 62 OPS+ is a 74-point decline. In that time frame, only two other players had an OPS+ drop of more than 40 points—Todd Hundley (65 points) and Don Mattingly (42).

Craig is also the only one of those players to see his OPS+ dip below 70 at ages 29 and 30. He is the only player to have it drop more than 50 percent, and he is also the only player to have it drop more than 70 points.

Because Craig performed well for part of the time he had the foot injury, and because there was not a statistical indication that regression was coming, this was a surprising career turn for everyone involved.

Jim Rogash/Getty Images

“I’m keeping a positive attitude anyway,” Craig told Benbow. “I’m going to be professional and just play the game and do the best I can. That’s all I can do.”

That Craig is hitting with Pawtucket—.326 with an .814 OPS in 43 at-bats—gives hope that he can return to the majors, even if it is not with the Red Sox. For the first time since 2013, his last productive season, he is healthy and getting regular at-bats. It could all be as simple as that.

If Craig gets another major league opportunity, we will all find out.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.