Sunday was not a good day for Dylan Crews.
Dating back to the start of the previous series a week earlier, Crews was just 1 for his last 16 with two walks and four strikeouts. That one hit was a single. Things didn't get any better the afternoon of the final game before the All-Star break. With runners on the corners and nobody out, Crews struck out swinging on a 2-2 sweeper from Will Warren nowhere near the zone.
Then came the eighth inning. Crews, who, by at least Statcast's account, has been above average defensively in the outfield this year, chased after a high, deep drive by Ben Rice on 2-2 with two out and two on, the Nationals up one. The ball sent him back to the wall, but as Dylan reached up to glove it, the reality of the situation quickly became apparent: he'd misjudged it by about a foot. The ball ricocheted off the wall, Crews tumbled onto his back, and Daylen Lile fired the ball back in. When the dust cleared, both runners had scored, flipping the game in favor of the visiting Yankees, and Ben Rice reached third base easily.
It was a play that, according to Statcast, had a 95% catch probability. If Crews had positioned himself probably six inches further towards left field, the catch would have been made, and pitcher Andrew Alvarez would have escaped the jam. Instead, it was the third time in the three-game series the Nats had blown a lead in the eighth inning or later. He'd go on to take a called third strike multiple inches off the plate in the bottom of the inning, leaving the box without thinking to challenge.
Crews said after the game, "I thought I knew where it was ... I should've had it." For a number of Nationals fans, it was the tipping point for the former second-overall draft pick's tenure in DC.
Just don't know how many more chances you can give Dylan Crews. It just feels over for him in DC which is a real shame given all the hype and expectations
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) July 12, 2026
It's been a tough go of it for Dylan Crews in the majors. The 24-year-old now has a 70 wRC+ on the season, but as recently as July 5th his 15-game rolling wRC+ was 138. We saw at LSU what kind of player he's capable of being, when he scored 100 runs in 71 games with a .567 OBP en route to a national championship. At 22, he was managing a 116 wRC+ in the high minors. It has yet to translate in the big leagues.
My position on the matter is that the Nationals need to hold the line. This is a new era of Nationals baseball, but it's also one of patience where it matters most. Crews was a 60 FV prospect just two years ago. He reached the majors a year after Curtis Mead, a similarly-ranked prospect, who's only just now coming into his own for the Nationals at a year older.
The most important factor to this new era is the amount of communication being performed between the front office, the coaching staff, and the players. In his first two years in the majors, Crews was surrounded by old-school minds in Davey Martinez and Darnell Coles, who, sure, had the data he needed to use to succeed, but didn't readily present it to him, and certainly did not do so in a way that allowed him to fully capitalize on it. This new regime has made a point of flipping that on its head. A quote from CJ Abrams, ahead of his first career start in the All-Star Game, shone a little light on that:
James Wood said he looks at wRC+, and CJ Abrams said he uses chase rate — controlling the zone has been a point of emphasis for him all season. https://t.co/oRUUZJjMQI
— Kyle W (@K_Williamsmedia) July 14, 2026
The Nationals, most likely, are not going to make an all-out push for the playoffs. If their day-to-day operations lead them there, they will go the furthest they can, but they are not going to mortgage their future to chase a 2026 dream. That includes Crews, who's now played 163 major league games. The Nats do not gain anything by replacing Crews with Joey Wiemer or Christian Franklin, and they in turn have everything to gain by continuing to work with him in the majors and using the last two and a half months of play to fully take stock of the outfield situation.
I see the public taking this attitude a lot about post-prospect hype guys. A guy not breaking out the first or second year you expect them to does not warrant writing them off for good. I don't fully buy into the Jordan Walker comparisons, who was drafted out of high school and played over 100 major league games at age 21, but Aaron Judge was a consensus 55 FV guy before his graduation from prospect status at age 25. That's not to say you should expect that Dylan Crews is going to become Aaron Judge by any means, but there is merit to having patience.
As Nationals fans, it's frustrating. We've been expected to have nothing but patience for over half a decade now as the team trotted out some of the worst rosters in franchise history and saw guys like Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, and Juan Soto get shipped out. But as the rest of an electric offense takes shape, the Nats can afford to give DC3 the time he needs to finally find his sea legs at the major league level. Frankly, after dealing with Davey's coaching staff the last two years, they owe it to him. Hell, he's already got the hitting lefties thing down. Can't be that hard to figure out righties, can it?
Add us as a preferred source on Google