As part of writing the Top 50 I pull a bunch of data and start to dig in to get a deeper look at the players. I can’t put all of the data into the writeups, so it is largely the overview that gets put into the list. When it came to Justin Crawford more extra information was generated than usual, and that information told a story more nuanced than much of the discussion around him.
Ground Balls
Whenever the discussion of Justin Crawford comes up, his ground ball rate comes up first. The reason is simple, it is really hard to put up extra base hits with balls on the ground. If you don’t get extra base hits, it is really hard to be a plus offensive player. We can see that in Crawford’s own batted ball outcomes, where even with his speed he isn’t turning those into extra bases.
| Type | AVG | ISO | BABIP | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB | .352 | .050 | .352 | .329 |
| FB* | .292 | .458 | .186 | .423 |
| LD | .696 | .253 | .684 | .699 |
No one has suggested that Crawford uppercut for the fences, but there is a lot of space between that and where he was in 2023 at nearly 70%. He dropped that dramatically in 2024 to 60.9%, but a very modest improvement down to 59.4% for the 2025 season. That doesn’t really tell the full story because we can look at month over month trending in 2026.
| Month | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB%* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 25.0% | 55.9% | 14.7% | 4.4% |
| May | 22.7% | 65.2% | 10.6% | 1.5% |
| June | 23.2% | 58.9% | 12.5% | 5.4% |
| July | 17.3% | 57.7% | 23.1% | 1.9% |
| August | 28.8% | 51.3% | 16.3% | 3.8% |
The first month of the year, Crawford got the ball off the ground more, but then we see a spike and a gradual decline before a sharp drop in August. To investigate this more we need to acknowledge that hitting balls on the ground is generally not the plan (excluding bunt attempts for hits), it is a product of how the contact is made, and consequently the swing and decision to swing. That once again doesn’t mean that ground balls should never happen, there are trade offs of ability to make contact and other interplays that means that the ball is going to get hit on the ground and that can still lead to a positive outcome.
The Swing
Here is a still from Crawford’s pre-swing setup June 25, 2025. His hands are over his head and his posture is very upright even as the pitcher releases the pitch.
That day he hit a home run on an inside 86 mph cutter. You can see his hands drifting as the pitch is in flight before the inside pitch engages his hips.
On pitches that weren’t in that zone, his hands and hips were disconnected as his hands had a larger distance to travel to get into the hitting zone. Crawford’s wrists are strong enough that he was still getting the bat to the ball, but that ball was ending up hit into the ground. Here is his average launch angle and ISO from April-July.
We can see that he was slugging more on pitches about to hit him than in the middle of the plate. We also see the out half of the plate is just being hit right into the ground.
Here is Crawford’s set up on August 24, 2025, and a stance that shows up earlier in August as well. His hands are lower, more at face level, and the bat is angled back in a more conventional looking style, and more importantly it is closer to where his hands were starting to drift to earlier in the year.
We also have a home run from that day. There is a slight hitch, but overall we see the momentum along the swing path and much quieter and connected.
If we look at the same two heat maps we can see there is some noise from the smaller sample size (the -42 consists of two pitches), but the damage is coming more from the middle of the zone and there isn’t a worm killing spot away.
This matches what we saw with the larger batted ball numbers. There were more line drives, less balls on the ground, and a solid number of balls in the air. From the basic stat side the numbers are there as well as Crawford hit .369/.414/.553 in August with 4 of his 7 home runs.
The Approach and Pitch Recognition
A quieter swing does little without also swinging at the right pitches. Crawford has a reputation as a free swinger, with swing rates of 54.0% and 54.5% in 2023 and 2024. That dropped to 49.6% in 2025, but passivity for passivity sake does not make an improved approach. A general warning sign of pitch recognition when it came to Crawford is that for the AAA season he was 24th percentile in chase rate and 35th percentile in swinging at hittable pitches. Essentially he was swinging often, but that came in the form of expanding the zone more and not in being aggressive in the zone. That often is a sign that the player is caught in between or is not reading the pitch out of the pitcher’s hand. Given the length of Crawford’s swing, any delay in picking up a pitch was going to lead to him not being on time and would have led to missing pitches in the zone.
We see this also show up in some of Crawford’s other season stats. Crawford posts good zone contact rates (88.4% 81st percentile), but elite levels of swing and miss against offspeed pitches (18.2% 95th percentile). This means that he has to have a lot of swing and miss against fastballs compared to his peers. Here is his whiff rate against pitches he saw at least 50 of in 2025.
| FF | SI | FC | SL | ST | CU | CH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17.7% | 19.2% | 15.3% | 20.0% | 20.0% | 17.4% | 16.8% |
Having the same whiff rates against fastballs and breaking balls is pretty unheard of, as is having a whiff rate that high against sinkers. That fits what we have seen about his swing too. He is going to get beat by things that are hard and he has the hands to get the bat to softer stuff. Now like everything we have talked about, trends matter. So here is Crawford’s whiff rates on those two fastballs over time, and then his whiff rate on breaking balls and changeups.
| Month | FF | SI | Breaking Balls | Changeups |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar/Apr | 18.6% | 40.7% | 15.6% | 11.8% |
| May | 21.2% | 9.1% | 26.8% | 21.4% |
| June | 27.1% | 2.0% | 15.6% | 5.3% |
| July | 14.8% | 5.9% | 20.0% | 26.3% |
| August | 10.8% | 13.8% | 24.0% | 17.9% |
We do see some susceptibility to offspeed as the year goes on, but there is a definite shift in not missing fastballs. Now this is all not happening in isolation as teams are always working to attack weaknesses, so we can see teams beginning to attack Crawford in certain ways. Here is the pitch mix he saw month over month.
| Month | FF | SI | FC | SL | ST | CU | CH | FS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 38.4% | 11.7% | 8.2% | 16.0% | 6.9% | 5.0% | 8.5% | 4.4% |
| May | 34.2% | 13.5% | 12.3% | 13.4% | 5.7% | 4.9% | 14.3% | 1.1% |
| June | 30.1% | 21.3% | 10.0% | 15.1% | 4.4% | 6.0% | 10.3% | 1.6% |
| July | 38.8% | 14.6% | 9.9% | 11.4% | 6.1% | 4.7% | 12.0% | 1.2% |
| August | 37.1% | 14.6% | 9.0% | 16.0% | 2.0% | 5.3% | 11.8% | 3.1% |
Some of this subject to variance of competition with the 6 game series, but we can see the word about his struggles with sinkers get out, and then when he hits them, we see the return of the 4-seam fastball and really a fairly fastball forward pitch diet for modern baseball. Pitch type was not the only place we see this back and forth. Given Crawford’s lack of damage when he put the ball in play, pitchers pounded the zone against him, especially with sinkers in June. The counter when they moved off of those sinkers in July was to try and leverage Crawford’s aggression into chasing more pitches out of the zone.
| Month | Zone% | Swing% | Z-Swing% | O-Swing% | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar/Apr | 47.2% | 52.6% | 71.1% | 36.1% | 10.0% | 20.8% |
| May | 49.9% | 51.8% | 65.9% | 32.8% | 9.8% | 19.6% |
| June | 56.9% | 52.2% | 71.4% | 28.6% | 14.5% | 11.8% |
| July | 44.9% | 41.4% | 57.1% | 34.1% | 16.5% | 17.6% |
| August | 39.6% | 52.0% | 75.2% | 36.8% | 7.1% | 18.6% |
It is very good sign to me that we see some of the trends we expect to see. When pitchers come into the zone in June with a pitch Crawford has adjusted to, we see strong swing rates against it and a drop in strikeouts as pitchers are seeking to get him out in the zone. We see a bit of wary response in July to pitchers just not throwing strikes, and while that passivity isn’t what we want to see in a consistent approach, Crawford mostly just took his walks. Then we see the response we mostly want to see in August. As pitchers continue to try and expand the zone, we see only a slight uptick in chase rate, but overall Crawford’s swing rate normalizes to previous levels with in zone aggression. He still needs to cut down on the chase, but being able to ramp up zone swing rate while still not getting pitches in the zone is a good sign that he is seeing pitches well, especially since as noted earlier he crushed the ball in August.
This leads to one small sample size table that is hopefully a portent of the future. Here is Crawford by month in situations Baseball Savant deems as ahead in the count where the pitch is in the heart of the plate.
| Month | # of Pitches | Swings | Balls in Play | AVG | ISO | wOBA | Launch Angle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar/Apr | 36 | 33 | 11 | .273 | .000 | .221 | 13 |
| May | 40 | 32 | 10 | .500 | .083 | .472 | 9 |
| June | 26 | 21 | 5 | .500 | .000 | .353 | 2 |
| July | 26 | 16 | 6 | .500 | .000 | .441 | 1 |
| August | 25 | 18 | 11 | .545 | .545 | .691 | 22 |
These situations are small sample size, but they are the small sample sizes that have the biggest impact. It is the time when the hitters is at the biggest advantage and where great hitters feast. Over the first 4 months of the season, Crawford was in that situation 128 times, only put the ball in play 32 times and had one extra base hit. In 25 times in August he put the ball in play 11 times and had two home runs. It is a small sample summation of the previous improvements, namely having a swing that can be on time and an approach and pitch recognition to attack the pitch when it is there.
Going Forward
Is Justin Crawford actually good and all fixed? The answer is probably not, and we were robbed by his September collision with Otto Kemp from these sample sizes being more meaningful to make that assessment. He is a 22 year old who is going to face better challenges than what AAA threw at him. His ability to make physical and mental adjustments is a good sign, especially when coupled with him working to make those same adjustment on defense (as detailed by Charlotte Varnes for The Athletic). The path where Crawford became an impact player for the Phillies never was going to come through him hitting the ball into the ground and sprinting to first. It also wasn’t going to happen by just willing flyballs and line drives into existence either, it was going to be by doing the overall improvements to his swing and approach that was going to naturally put him in a better place at the plate. It makes me more optimistic that he can be a contributor in the long term and excited to see what he does in 2026.
Great, in-depth analysis, Matt.
Good stuff Matt. Enjoyed the read.