2025 may be the new career year for Mariners’ J.P. Crawford

Jun 16, 2025, 1:06 PM

Editor, Seattle Sports

The 2023 season was the best Seattle Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford had ever looked at the plate.

Except until now, it seems.

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Crawford was stellar in 145 games in 2023, slashing .266/.380/.438 for an .818 OPS with a career-high 19 home runs and American League-leading 94 walks. But in 68 games so far this season, he’s making a push to be a first-time All-Star with numbers that are even better almost across the board.

After a big weekend in Seattle’s three-game sweep of the Cleveland Guardians, Crawford owns a .296/.411/.413 slash for an .824 OPS with six homers. He’s also second in the AL in both walks (46) and on-base percentage.

Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith, who handles the ROOT Sports play-by-play duties, talked to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Monday morning about Crawford’s impressive season.

“I was looking at his numbers other day – compared to his career season two years ago, average noticeably higher, on base noticeably higher, which is like stunning based on how good he was in those categories two years ago,” Goldsmith said. “Power is down – not a ton, but he hit almost 20 home runs and he has six now as we near the midway point.

“I think we’d all agree, I don’t need J.P. Crawford to hit 20 home runs. It’d be awesome; don’t need him to do it. Would love him just to get on base and spray the ball, and he’s doing that better than anybody.”

Something that Goldsmith finds interesting about Crawford’s performance in 2025 is that his hard-hit rate of 34.6% is actually down from last season (37.8%), which was a rough year for the former Gold Glove winner. And yet Crawford is having much more success at the plate despite it.

In fact, per Statcast, Crawford is ranking high in several offensive metrics including xwOBA (84th percentile), xBA (90th percentile) and launch angle sweet-spot rate (98th percentile) – three things that are way up when compared to either 2024 or 2023.

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“Your odds increase the harder you hit the ball, right? But I would say for J.P., he makes up for that with generally making a very good amount of contact,” Goldsmith said. “I don’t know if he’s an elite contact hitter, although he is elite at getting on base. He’s not like a Steven Kwan type or (Luis) Arráez type.

“But I think (it helps) when you have the ability to work as many counts as he does, foul off as many pitches as he does, obviously comfortable hitting with two strikes. I think J.P. is as comfortable batting in an 0-2 count as in the first pitch of an at-bat.”

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith in the podcast at this link or the player below. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. live weekdays on Seattle Sports.