PLAYER REVIEW: DYLAN CREWS

Age on Opening Day 2026: 24

How acquired: First round pick, 2023 Draft

MLB service time: 1 year, 35 days

2025 salary: $761,800

Contract status: Under club control, arbitration-eligible in 2028, free agent in 2031

2025 stats: 85 G, 322 PA, 293 AB, 43 R, 61 H, 8 2B, 2 3B, 10 HR, 27 RBI, 17 SB, 5 CS, 24 BB, 76 SO, .208 AVG, .280 OBP, .352 SLG, .631 OPS, 79 OPS+, 3 DRS, 3 OAA, 0.4 bWAR, 0.2 fWAR

Quotable: “It was a whirlwind. Definitely not what I was expecting. But I learned a lot this year. I don’t really look at anything like failures. I look at everything as lessons. This year, it wasn’t what I was expecting. But I look at it as a blessing, and I learned a lot this year.” – Dylan Crews

2025 analysis: After getting his feet wet during a 31-game debut at the end of the 2024 season, Crews entered this campaign poised to start playing like the top prospect he was coming out of LSU. That didn’t happen, both because of a significant injury and continued struggles at the plate.

Crews started the season in an 0-for-18 funk, which immediately put pressure on the rookie. He did slowly start to get it together, hitting seven homers while stealing 10 bases over his next 40 games. But then he winced on a check-swing May 20 against the Braves and had to be removed with an oblique strain. That injury wound up costing him nearly three months.

By the time he was activated off the IL on Aug. 14, the Nationals’ fortunes had long since been determined, leaving him and them to play out the string under an interim manager and a lame-duck coaching staff. He had some nice moments, to be sure, and at times the team appeared to play better when he was in the lineup as opposed to when he wasn’t. But the overall performance remained underwhelming, especially in the power department: Crews hit only three homers in 40 games following his IL stint, well below the pace he established pre-injury.

2026 outlook: This was in many ways a lost season for a kid who entered it with high hopes. Because he missed so much time with the oblique strain, Crews never could find a groove. And because the team was out of the race and already looking ahead to 2026 by the time he returned, his competitive drive had little impact during a string of meaningless games.

Two years after he was drafted No. 2 in the country behind former LSU teammate Paul Skenes (career ERA: 1.97) and ahead of Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford (5.6 bWAR in 134 games this season with the Rangers), Crews hasn’t come anywhere close to realizing his full potential. But there are legitimate reasons to believe he can still get there.

In the outfield, Crews is rock solid. He’s mostly played right field, but the 19 games he’s played to date in center field suggest he could more than hold his own there. On the bases, he’s both aggressive and successful, capable of 30 steals over a full season with an impressive 57.7 percent “extra bases taken” rate (going first to third or second to home on singles, first to home on doubles) that dwarfs the leaguewide rate of 42.2 percent.

Crews’ development is all about what he does at the plate. The good news: His hard-hit rate (38.7 percent) and exit velocity (89.7 mph) are both above league average. The bad news: He hits too many ground balls (50.2 percent vs. the MLB average of 44.2 percent), and he swings and misses too much, especially on pitches out of the zone (39.5 percent contact rate on those vs. the MLB average of 58 percent). It makes sense his batting average on balls in play is a meager .246 (MLB average: .291).

The new coaching staff’s No. 1 task with Crews: Help him to lay off breaking balls and changeups outside the strike zone, and help him hit more fastballs in the air instead of on the ground. If he can show even modest improvement in both areas, the rest of his skillset should take over and turn many of those strikeouts and groundouts into line drives that find grass (or even clear the fence).