While Dylan Crews only went 1 for 4 with a single yesterday, it still felt like he was in the middle of everything for the Nats. His impact in the field and on the bases was very loud in the Nationals 8-3 win over the Mariners. Crews pretty much sealed the win with his mad dash from first to home on a single up the middle.
Seeing Crews fly around the bases like that and watching him pop up when he slid in safely was so much fun to watch. Plays like that are
part of the reason fans want the Dylan Crews thing to work out so badly. He is just one of those players that is consistently making winning plays out there.
However, it is tough to be a winning player when you are hitting .192 with a .562 OPS. Crews was seen as one of the safest and most polished hitting prospects in a long time when he came out of LSU. That offensive profile has not translated to the big leagues so far, especially not the 70 grade hit tool that was talked about out of the draft.
At this point, I think we have a large enough sample size to say that a 70 hit tool is never coming. Crews has a .208 career average and .623 OPS in nearly 500 at bats now. He is never going to be the hitter he was supposed to be out of college. That does not mean he cannot improve and become a productive big leaguer.
Crews still has some intriguing offensive tools, and I think he can become an average hitter with a couple adjustments. While Crews has struggled at the plate, fans have often pointed to his underlying data to suggest improvement could be on the horizon. After a while, it gets annoying because he has underperformed his expected stats for years now.
However, when you look at the data, there is no way he should be this bad. His xwOBA is .333, which is over 80 points higher than his wOBA of .252. For his career, Crews has underperformed his xwOBA by 40 points, so there must be something in his profile some of the expected stats don’t see. Part of it is likely the fact he hits a lot of ground balls and does not pull balls in the air.
When Crews does get a hold of a ball, it can be pretty to watch. He is not some massive guy like James Wood, but he can generate a ton of force and power. Crews has always hit baseballs hard, but they are usually ground balls or low liners. The other night, he elevated and then celebrated in the dugout.
There are some encouraging signs that Crews could be lifting the ball with more regularity. His average launch angle is up from 8.5 degrees to 12.1 degrees. Crews’ ground ball rate has also gone from over 50% to 42.6%, which is a major improvement.
I think Crews is due for a hot streak at the plate, but there are still plenty of holes in his profile. He has been chasing pitches more than ever, and his 37.2% chase rate is higher than Keibert Ruiz. For Crews to have more offensive success, he needs to keep the ball in the air and find the right pitches to swing at. He also needs to find a way to get into count leverage because it feels like he gets down 0-2 in about half his at bats.
There are still a lot of big picture offensive things Crews needs to work on, but his heart and hustle will never be in doubt. I think Crews is one of the best base runners in the sport. He is not afraid to swipe bags and is always trying to take the extra base. Crews is a man possessed out on the bases and we saw that yesterday.
I think base running is the best part of Crews’ game right now. However, he is also a good defensive outfielder. When you look at the metrics, Crews is a good but not elite defensive outfielder. After all, there is a reason Jacob Young is the center fielder when the two are playing together. If Crews was a Young level defender, there would be less pressure on the bat.
While Crews is not elite on defense, he is very good. He showed that yesterday when he got a chance out in center field. The 24 year old made a really nice catch at the wall to rob Victor Robles of extra bases. Like when he is running the bases, Crews has a reckless abandon in the field that I love to watch.
At this point, we know Crews can do the little things. He is constantly looking to take the extra base or run into a wall to make a catch. The secondary tools are fantastic for the former LSU star. However, there is still one big question that looms over his future. That question is can Dylan Crews hit? So far the answer has been no, but Crews still has time to figure it out, though that time will not last forever.
