As I write this article, the Washington Nationals are in a pretty good place. They sit 3 games above .500 with a 38-35 record, and are going for a series victory over the Kansas City Royals tonight when they send lefty Foster Griffin to the bump at home in Nationals Park.
The team hasn't been 3 games above .500 since 2019, and a win tonight would get them to 4 games over, which also hasn't been done by the organization since the same season. However, if the team had more consistency from a handful of pitchers and even a couple other bats, it's really fair to wonder just how good the rest of the team could be, especially with guys performing like All-Stars such as James Wood and CJ Abrams.
The one guy who was supposed to be the 3rd head of that young trio of future All-Stars is Dylan Crews, who had gotten off to a slow start after being brought back up by the Nationals. However, he might be closer to coming around than most people would think.
Dylan Crews is due for some positive regression very soon
By just looking at Dylan Crews' surface numbers, you might think that there is not a lot there in terms of his performance so far this year. He has just a .195/.239/.356 slash line, good for just a .595 OPS, but taking a quick look under the hood shows just hwo unlucky he has been.
WIth an expected batting average (xBA) of .270 coming into Tuesday night, according to Savant, that 75 point disparity would make him one of the most unlucky hitters in baseball, however, he has not recorded enough at-bats yet to qualify. Even still, looking at the rest of his numbers on his page, and you can see that the adjustments he made in AAA already have his profile looking a ton better than previous years.
While his walk rate is despicable so far, having walked just twice in 92 plate appearances, he has cut down his K rate to just 18.5%, and has already been worth 1 OAA in the outfield. Combine that with his 95th-percentile speed, and you can begin to see the full package and reason why he was once a Golden Spikes Winner at LSU, a slam dunk choice for the #2 overall pick, and the #1 prospect in baseball for a short time.
As Paul Cubbage from Federal Baseball pointed out on X, Crews has dramatically increased his launch angle so far this year, and it is a huge reason why he has homered 3 times in 10 games entering Tuesday. Crews figuring out his launch angle would be a massive feather in the cap of the new coaching staff, and getting him right would be huge for the Nationals' future.
At this point, Crews might be on the verge of an actual breakout, but he will need the Baseball Gods to shine down upon him favorably for a couple weeks until his surface numbers more closely reflect the expected ones from his Savant page. If Crews can be the guy everyone expected him to be when he was drafted, the Nationals will have their outfield of the future fully cemented with Crews, Wood, and Daylen Lile.
Do you think Dylan Crews can figure things out with the Nationals this season? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.
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