Justin Crawford

Role: First Division Regular
Risk: Extreme – Crawford put up great statistical results in 2023, but not in a way that will translate to being a successful major league hitter. He has the underlying physical tools to be a positive offensive player and plus defensive center fielder, but it is going to take the Phillies and him doing extensive work at the plate.
Summary: On the surface, Justin Crawford put up a great season, he hit .332/.392/.467 with 47 stolen bases and reasonable walk and strikeout rates. The first layer under the surface begins to show the cracks, his .404 BABIP was high, and especially so when taken alongside his balls in play. He had only a 16.6% line drive rate and was easily the minor league leader (min 300 PAs) in ground ball rate at 69.7%. The minor league batted ball classification had him with only 38 fly balls on the year and only 30 of them reaching the outfield. His Clearwater batted ball data had him with a median launch angle of -9 degrees, and while that made some slight improvements over the course of the season, his ground ball rate spiked again with Jersey Shore. Most of his success on offense came from his plus plus speed, balls on the ground, and inexperienced fielders in the low minors. Against major leaguers there is a chance that this approach would get him a decent amount of singles, but there are other warning signs. Crawford was an aggressive swinger (53.9% swing rate) who was equally aggressive against anything but curveballs (curveball swing rate 39.8%, all other pitches >50%, including sliders at 57.7%). He was able to make contact with a good amount of fastballs, but he posted high swing and miss rates on sliders and cutters. Most of this came in the form of chase, and pitchers had success against him down and out of the zone.

Many of these problems stem from two things, and unfortunately they are two of the hardest things to correct. The first is his pitch recognition. His overall swing rate is not a huge problem, but he was vulnerable to being caught looking on fastballs (and most pitches) away, but his swing rate on sliders being near where it was on 4-seam fastballs indicates an overall problem with pitch recognition. The other problem is his swing. Crawford’s upper body and lower body are completely disconnected, and his swing can just be all arms at times. That leaves his bat path chopping down, and he struggles to get on plane with a pitch to be able to drive it in the air. All three of his home runs came on balls down and in, and that was true of most of his power, as we can see on a heat map of his isolated power in Clearwater.

The pitches down and in are where his lower half is forced to be engaged on the swing, and he gets the loft needed to be able to drive the ball. Because he doesn’t have his lower half engaged, he doesn’t do damage on the pitches in the high danger parts of the zone.

It is clear that the Phillies and Crawford will need to work on his swing, and they have already started on that. Swing changes are not easy, but there are positive underlying numbers that indicate that these changes could make Crawford into a good hitter. Despite the swing problems and pitch recognition issues, Crawford had the bat control to have a low in zone whiff rate, and while often off balance, he was able to get the bat on the ball. Unlike some of the other hitters in the Phillies org, Crawfords exit velocity numbers are fine for his age. With Clearwater, he averaged 86.5mph, with a 90th percentile outcome of 103.5mph, and a max of 107.4mph. I hesitate to say that exit velocity on balls hit directly into the ground will translate directly into fly balls and line drives. Even if that doesn’t all translate with a swing change with more loft, Crawford is still very skinny and is expected to add strength. It is not unreasonable to think he could get to at least average raw power. He will still need to be able to actually tap into that with his swing, but having the existing wrist and arm strength to control the bat in the zone and still impact that ball is a good base.

This has all ignored the other part of Crawford’s game. He has plus plus speed, and he should be able to use it on the base paths and on infield ground balls. Additionally, regardless of the above discussion of swing changes, bunt base hits are going to be a part of his repertoire, and he already shows some proficiency in them. The speed also plays in the outfield, where he is already a good defensive center fielder. He lacks the instincts and route running that Johan Rojas did at the same level, but there is time to grow into some of that, and that will determine whether he is a plus defender in center or an elite one.

None of the flaws for Crawford are new or surprising, and he might have more upside now than he did a year ago. The risk of making a pretty dramatic swing change and the pitch recognition issues mean that he is very high risk despite the high defensive floor.
2024 Outlook: Crawford spent most of a month in Jersey Shore to end 2023, and he should return there to open 2024. He may make the improvements he needs and push himself to Reading by the middle of the season. He may also need to be pushed to a level where he is challenged in a way that forces him to make changes.

Role: Regular Center Fielder
Risk: Extreme – Crawford’s risk comes in two forms. The first is the obvious, he is 19 years old, not physically mature, and a long way of development away from the majors. The other is that he does not make consistent hard or impactful contact with the ball.
Summary: The Phillies have spent a few years showing they struggle to develop hitters and succeed with pitchers, particularly high school arms. They decided to take the challenge of correcting that fully on, by going with a long term project of a pick. Crawford comes from good bloodlines, but even if he wasn’t Carl Crawford’s son there is obvious talent to work with. He has a lanky frame that is unlikely to fill out for big time power, but should also maintain his athleticism as he fills out. That is important because he is at least a plus plus runner who should be a plus center field defender in the long term. His swing looks good, and he can get the bat on the ball. He just does not have much impact behind the swing and does not seem to be adept at finding his pitches to drive and then doing damage on them.

There is not really a role for a slap and run hitter in the modern game, especially not from a player taken with the 17th pick in the draft. This does not mean that Crawford is going to need to become a 20+ home run hitter to have value to a major league team. He is going to need to at least be able to hit hard line drives so that he can use his legs to get extra bases in the gaps. Ideally though, you want to take a projectable bodied teenager with elite athleticism and get a plus bat at a premium position out of it. Crawford has only played in 16 professional games, and the Phillies have made some distinct changes in their hitting development personnel, so this is not a fated poor outcome.
2023 Outlook: The Phillies will likely send Crawford back to the Threshers where he should spend most of the season. They have given late season promotions to their top prospects, so he could end the year in Jersey Shore. We might not see the power numbers yet, but it would be good to see him start to show the underlying swing characteristics to allow him to utilize his strength as he grows into it.

Role: Solid Regular Short of a Breakout
Risk: High – Crawford has yet to really develop a solid floor while his ceiling continues to stay out of reach. Despite his speed, he has not been an impact defender in center field, and while he has improved, he continues to hit the ball on the ground at an alarming rate.
Summary: In many ways Crawford gets credit for things that won’t work at the next level while hiding skills more impactful than often talked about. His swing is still a mess, though it is an improving mess. He too often will have a flat, arms only path through the zone, and while his coordination is good enough to get the bat on the ball, it has been a recipe for poor contact. His pitch recognition and approach have also not been great, which has led to some of the ill advised swings. His ground ball rate (60.9% on the season) was among the highest in the minors, and while he has at minimum 70 grade speed, he just is not going to provide sufficient offensive value hitting the ball on the ground. Major league defenders are going to be much more likely to make outs, and the potential for using his speed to leg out doubles is greatly reduced if he is not getting the ball in the air. He also could benefit from getting the ball in the air because he is not without power. While many of them have been balls hit directly into the dirt, his 90th percentile EV of 104.6 mph was average among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects. He doesn’t need to become a three true outcome, lift and pull hitter, he should be getting the ball in the air enough to be a 15-20 home run a year hitter who gets a large number of doubles and triples due to line drives and speed. Part of it will be finding better connectedness in his swing, and some will be working on his approach to actually look to square up the ball more in favorable counts and let his contact abilities and speed work as a secondary skill. Crawford was once again good on the bases thanks to his speed, and if he can get on base he is going to pick up extra value with his legs. His speed is hiding a scary deficiency on defense. His routes and jumps have been subpar, and he is not as aggressive a defender as his speed should allow him to be. Right now, he projects as an ok defender in center, and he should be at least plus. That leaves him with a very volatile set of skills, because there is a path where he is a plus defender, who is a terror on the bases, while putting up above average offensive numbers. That is probably an all-star level ceiling with the current state of centerfield, but you can’t say he does any of those things particularly well. The other side of the spectrum is Johan Rojas with a bit more thump and two to three grades worse defense, and that is a player type the Phillies have pushed aside. Crawford just turned 21, and while there is a real call in the fanbase for him to come up and try and solve the center field position, it might make more sense for the Phillies to really take their time to develop him as a more complete player rather than rush him.
2025 Outlook: Crawford should start the year with Reading and could see AAA by the summer. Unless he suddenly puts it all together, another year of high minor seasoning is probably good for him.

Role: Incredibly Frustrating Above Average Regular
Risk: Medium – It is true of any player that the role and risk is a sliding scale, but it might be most true with Crawford. The closer he gets to the majors without failing or fixing his issues, the more it looks like he can be a useful player in some capacity. The quality of his tools, coupled with his inability to fully access them, is going to leave outsiders wishing for more.
Overview: The critique of Justin Crawford throughout his pro career is that he hit the ball on the ground too much, due to a combination of swing mechanics and pitch recognition that left him in a place where he was lunging at pitches and making poor contact. The Phillies pushed him to AAA to see if better competition would force some change. The surface level result is he hit the ball on the ground nearly as much in 2025 as he did in 2024. However, he saw improvements in that area over the course of the year, with his GB% peaking at 65% in May, but it was 57.7% in July and just 51.3% in August. The goal here is not that Crawford becomes fly ball/pull heavy, but it is really about getting him on time to the ball so that he isn’t just merely getting the bat to the ball. This gets to one of the frustrations at the heart of watching Crawford, he has at least average raw power, and when he turns on a ball, you do see a player who should be pulling balls in certain parts of the zone out and does have the power to go opposite field. He did make positive changes in that area already. Over the first 4 months of the season he saw 128 pitches in the heart of the zone while ahead in counts, He swung at 102 of them and had one extra base hit. In August he swung at 18 of the 25 pitches in that scenario, but had an ISO of .545 thanks to two home runs, part of the 4 he hit that month. If he can keep the ground ball rate to more in the low 50% and run a high line drive rate, he is going to hit some balls out of the park, and he is going to get a bunch of doubles and triples by hitting balls into the gaps and using his speed. This also ties into Crawford’s approach and pitch recognition. He has very good contact rates, both in and out of the zone, and rarely whiffs on offspeed pitches. He swings a bunch (though much less this year than the past two years), and chases a bunch, but also as we saw with the damage side, he did not actually swing at or hit the ball hard on pitches in the zones where he should hit them. Whether Crawford can’t recognize pitches, or his disjointed swing is preventing him from being on time to the pitches he does recognize, Crawford’s poor contact quality does stem from swing decisions. Encouragingly, in July pitchers started throwing him fastballs out of the zone more (fastballs have been one of his weaknesses due to the swing length) and he responded by not swinging, which led to far and away his highest walk rate of any month. Being passive isn’t really a plan, so it was encouraging to see him really ramp up not his chase rate in August, but his zone swing rate, and while that did come with more strikeouts and fewer walks, it was the best contact results he had all year. This is all going to be tested against better pitchers, and getting his swing smooth and on time will help him use these approach improvements, but he is going to need to continue to be aggressive in the zone and not just aggressive.

Crawford’s speed is the one part of his game that is not really debated among evaluators. He is a plus plus runner, who is aggressive on the base paths and is limited more by not giving himself a chance to use it than the straight line speed. He also is a good bunter for hits, and while he needs to improve his contact quality overall, that does not mean scrapping the bunts, as they are a useful vehicle for getting on base and manipulating defensive alignments. On defense, Crawford’s speed is his saving grace, more than a weapon. He will often take his first step in the wrong direction or take a poor route to a ball. He has great closing speed and ability to make a catch on the run or dive, but that mostly has meant turning easy plays into highlights. There are real conversations about whether he is a left fielder due to this deficiency, so it will be imperative on the Phillies to clean up his routes and reads during Spring Training. His ceiling in center is plus defender because of his speed, but if he can just get to the point of being average out there it takes a lot of pressure off his bat to perform. His arm in the outfield is good enough to not be a liability, but not good enough to make right field really an option if he can’t play center.

You can make a case that Crawford is a left fielder who won’t hit for power, will be susceptible to chasing major league pitches, and just be a below average hitting bench outfielder. It is also not that hard to squint a little and see a high average hitter who is going to hit 15 home runs with 40+ stolen bases and good outfield defense. The truth is likely to be something messy in the middle. There are going to be moments where he is playing below his tools, and that is going to make what he does look disappointing, even if he is putting together solid contributions.
2026 Outlook: The Phillies have said that they plan on Crawford being the Opening Day center fielder. Given the makeup of the roster, the Phillies will be motivated to give him plenty of time to adapt and adjust, as long as he can be competent in center field and provide some value at the bottom of the lineup.