Crisp walked 44 times in ‘05

Kind of ironic that a guy named after a breakfast cereal will be setting the table for Big Papi and Manny. But Coco Crisp will need to do a little better than the 44 walks he had in 2005 to get the job done.

The 44 walks marked a career high for Crisp, as did his 81 strikeouts. Those numbers sound more like a replacement for Mark Bellhorn than Johnny Damon. Still CC should be one most interesting players to follow in 2005 for a number of reasons.

The most obvious of those is lineup. Crisp put up some pretty nice numbers last year (16 HR, 69 RBI, .300 BA) in a lineup lacking much thunder. It’s a different story this year. In addition to Ortiz and Ramirez, he will have a .300 hitter following him in Mark Loretta. So CC will see a lot of strikes in the leadoff spot.

Now, that may or may not lead to more walks, but should reduce the number of strikeouts because nobody will be pitching around Coco Crisp this year.