3 stats that prove Mariners shortstop JP Crawford's 2023 season wasn't a fluke

Imagine you are back at this point in the offseason in 2023. You are heading into Spring Training with the Mariners coming off of a playoff berth, and feeling good about their upcoming season. Things are looking up, and it's time to make some bold predictions.

Sure, their record has to be on there. Probably something about Julio, and maybe Kirby or Gilbert as well. Teo or Geno, Dumper, maybe you are gonna predict a big Kelenic season. However, there is one that likely wasn't on there, and if it was, didn't end up the same as what ended up occuring during the season.

Is that cryptic enough (or maybe just confusing)? Who I'm talking about is JP Crawford, and the season that he ended up putting together. No one predicted that he would lead the league in walks or hit 19 HR, because there was no indicator that he would do anything like that outside of his time spent at Driveline. It's one of the reasons baseball is so fun. Predictions occasionally need to be wild and crazy, because they do happen. If you don't believe me, just look at Ronald Acuna's stats.

It becomes more than just 2023 for JP Crawford. Whether fair or not, Mariners fans are constantly wondering if he can either keep getting better, or now that he is "good" on offense, keep it up. We used to wonder if he was good enough to be the team's shortstop. Now, we wonder if he is good enough to repeat what he did in 2023 and kickstart the top of the Mariners lineup. Here are three reasons why it's going to happen in 2024.