Allen Craig / Justin Turner – My oh My

Phil Gurnee ♦ December 5, 2016 ♦ 1 Comment

I always wondered what kind of contract Allen Craig would have gotten had he hit free agency after his three-year run from 2011 – 2013 as Justin Turner has done instead of signing that  5/31 deal in the spring of 2013.  5/80 maybe?

I remembered Craig having a nice run for the Cardinals after coming out of nowhere at age 25. He was never a ranked prospect because he was usually considered old for his minor league levels.

So when he showed up and kicked ass at age 26 for the Cardinals you can say the baseball world was a little surprised.  He kept it up for three years and then simply fell off the planet.

But he did have one hell of a three-year run. And damn if wasn’t almost like Justin Turners recent three-year run. I’ll be honest, when I started putting the numbers in the spreadsheet I was pretty surprised at just how close they were.

They even had a declining OPS+ from year one through year three. Plus they started year one as a part time player building into year two.