Salk: What J.P. Crawford is doing for Mariners is incredibly rare

I love seeing the news that J.P. Crawford is volunteering to move over to third base to help the team, to help his career, and to help the Seattle Mariners try to win a World Series.

No Drama: J.P. Crawford, calm in the Mariners’ storm

It is rare to see a shortstop do that. In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a few shortstops who didn’t. John Valentin had to be moved out of the way for Nomar Garciaparra with the Red Sox. We remember Cal Ripken having to move to third as well. Of course, we all know that Derek Jeter was the one who refused to move to third base or second base when Alex Rodriguez showed up as a slightly younger and significantly better defensive shortstop for the Yankees.

I know Jeter gets a lot of credit for being the captain. I know he’s the greatest captain of all-time and a first-ballot Hall of Famer and all that, but I think it really hurt the Yankees that he refused to move. It certainly was not good from a defensive perspective. Go check out his defensive numbers and metrics over especially the back half of his career.

Doing what J.P. Crawford did with Colt Emerson now on the roster is incredibly rare. Very, very rare. Most professional athletes don’t have the self-awareness to look at the situation and do what’s actually best for the team, even if it isn’t necessarily what they had in mind for their own career.

I think it’s a great thing and he deserves a lot of credit, a lot of kudos for helping the Mariners be a better baseball team moving forward.

This post is a transcript of the video at the top of the post. It is edited for clarity. Catch Mike Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

More on the Seattle Mariners

• Despite struggles, Mariners hit the road with prime opportunity
• What we know about J.P potentially moving to 3B
• Which Seattle Mariners prospects could be traded this year?

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