In the St. Petersburg Times (hat tip MetsBlog.com), Carl Crawford is disappointed at his own lack of notoriety, using Jose Reyes as an example of a similar player with much greater acclaim:
"(Mets shortstop) Jose Reyes is like everything to people right now, and I don't see anything different that he's doing and I'm doing. But nobody knows what I'm doing and he's like a big megastar, the best player ever, the most exciting player and all that stuff. And I'm like, 'Okay, what's the difference?' "Matt at MetsBlog does a nice job laying out a basic stat comparison of the two, and Crawford certainly compares favorably (though Reyes has a slight edge in most categories). Here's how they stack up via less traditional metrics:
Metric Crawford Reyes ------------------------------- VORP 33.8 52.6 Win Shares 21 26 MLVr .113 .154 EQA .292 .287 WARP3 5.9 6.4Reyes has the clear edge in every category, with the exception of EQA (Equivalence Average). Crawford is a fine player, but he is two years older than Reyes and plays a far less demanding defensive position (left field vs shortstop).
(Source = St. Pete Times)