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Justin Crawford's fantasy baseball prospect outlook, sleeper potential for dynasty leagues. Matt uses his custom suite of fundamentals-rooted evaluation tools.
Philadelphia Phillies outfield prospect Justin Crawford is next up in a series in which I examine the evolution of the pro offensive fundamentals of 2022 MLB Draft signees from the high school class. Crawford is seldom discussed without references to his father, Carl, one of the top elite-speed-with-some-power lefty-batting outfielders of the last several decades.
The Phillies' bloodlines-pedigreed speedster now sports a clearer hole in his batted-ball profile that could limit the contributions he makes to major league rosters ahead.
What do the professional plate profile and offensive outcomes portend for the future of Crawford in real-world and fantasy baseball circles?
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Prospect Analysis: Justin Crawford
Evolution of Pro Plate Profile
The Phillies selected Crawford with the 17th overall selection in the 2022 MLB Draft. The parties agreed to a $3.89 million bonus slightly over the pick's slot value.
A subsequent 2022 pro debut encompassed 63 plate appearances that began in the Rookie Florida Complex League and ended with the also-Clearwater-based Low-A Florida State League affiliate. An impressive 92 K Avoid with the Rookie club sank sharply to double minus (two) in Low-A. Complete loss of LD and Pull GB Avoid in Low-A left him as purely an IFFB Avoid batter who could not generate hits (zero AVG).
The debut versus Same-Handed Pitchers outcomes cast the left-handed batter as less likely to compete with pro-caliber southpaws.
Crawford opened his first full season of 2023 with 297 plate trips back in Low-A. There, he would re-establish the K Avoid + IFFB Avoid + Pull GB Avoid bias from the Rookie-level part of the 2022 debut. BB+HBP rated well under minus (10) while LD did still more (six).
His Low-A combination of 97 AVG and 38 ISO marks were each extremely high relative to typical production for the same Path to Batted Ball Profile fundamentals, suggesting that the quality of his contact was a lot louder than one might expect from a still slighter player.
More of the same sentiments can be had upon review of the 91 PA line that followed in High-A. The trademark extremely low-launch batted ball profile produced 55 AVG and 34 ISO marks at that stop, each of which would again be considered higher than expected. Through all four MiLB stops to that point of the pro career, Same-Handed Pitchers outcomes lagged well behind Oppo-Handed Pitchers outcomes.
Not much changed in a 308 PA return to High-A to start the 2024 campaign. He still was not drawing walks (five BB+HBP) to create further opportunities to use his speed on the basepaths. AVG and ISO marks moved nearer the 2023 Low-A ones and again skewed very high relative to much lower LD, OFFB, and Pull OFFB Ratings.
His final stint of 2024 involved 176 PA in Double-A. Again, the FaBIO line from the prior levels primarily held, though he had made some gains in LD and K Avoid. A 100 K Avoid versus Same-Handed Pitchers helped the lefthanded batter finally post an Overall that was better versus them than Oppo-Handed Batters.
While Crawford logged just 13 plate trips in 2025 MLB spring training games, the FaBIO line that resulted is prototypical of what a speed player like him should aspire to produce. It far exceeded what he had put up during his minor league tenure.
We generally want this variety of leg-reliant players to collect BB+HBP and else hit LD and GB anywhere but to the pull third and the stray Pull OFFB whenever they happen to loft an OFFB. When such a player accomplishes those aims in volume, they safely occupy first, or pass first safely on their way to the next base or two, quite often, and have many opportunities to use their plus to better speed while teammates are at the plate.
The LD component is a key cog because it lessens the onerous burden of maintaining near-perfect contact against exceptionally stuffed major league pitchers.
Evolution of Pro Offensive Running
The good news would be that Crawford rated in the top one percent of MiLB offensive runners as recently as the 2023 season; then, we would arrive roughly at the same destination whether the evaluation focused only on batter or instead on baserunner play events.
The bad news is that he slipped to less than a plus offensive runner in his most recent 2024 season, with the baserunner events explaining relatively more of the overall decline than the (still plus) batter plays did.
It is vital that Crawford plays fast as a batter to offset what seems a surer future shortage of line drives that will undermine his ability to hit for average in MLB. Meanwhile, he must also register as at least a plus baserunner to better allow him to reclaim some of the bonus bases that are sacrificed by sporting such an extreme low-launch batted-ball profile.
Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Focus
Per the 2024 and 2023 plate outcomes, the quality of contact (exit velocity, barrel sense, etc.) seems loud enough that Crawford does not need to be a standout at hitting line drives per batted ball. However, the single-digit line drive percentiles that he posted while at three of his last four minor league stops are far short of where he must rate in MLB at the same fundamental.
Something in the range of average to half plus line drive production would likely suffice.
The spray of groundballs is fairly optimized. He has hit a ton of them relative to peers who mostly do not have his beyond-plus raw sprint speed. But rather few of them are pulled to the first base side, featuring the short throw, else flip that effectively subtracts from his speed.
Crawford has enough strength to encourage hunting aerial pull opportunities on pitches that land in the downer-to-inner areas of his strike zone. He would benefit from at least a few slight upticks in batted-ball launch angles and probably could produce relatively more extra bases than most players built like him could on outfield flyballs to the center and opposite-third of the fields.
Although most MLB ballparks have relatively easier airouts there, the Phillies' park plays shallow to both corners from straightaway to the foul pole.
A better mix of line drive generation coupled with continued avoidance of both infield flyballs and pull-third grounders would help offset the relative shortage of walks and hit by pitches in recent minor league plate profiles. If more line drives do not come sooner, the MLB on-base percentages may only be high enough to permit bottom-of-the-order lineup positioning, if even that.
With on-base percentages projecting to skew lower ahead, a 2024 MiLB decline in offensive running still fresh in memory, and questions as to whether the left-handed batter will be able to deliver passable plate trips against MLB southpaws, Crawford momentarily better matches the MLB profile of a fourth outfielder than that of a bottom-of-lineup speedier, flycatcher fuller-time centerfielder.
Crawford made all 168 pre-2025 minor league defensive starts in center field, but he has since made seven in left field to begin 2025 in Triple-A. He played a much cleaner brand of outfield defense in 2024 than he had in 2023, and that must continue ahead to offset an arm that has recorded very few outfield assists despite some above-average strength grades on it.
The right-handed thrower could later play some second base to expand his defensive versatility, but the present value of his legs stands to keep him an outfielder for the short- to near-term.
While Crawford would not require 40-man rostering as protection from a Rule 5 Draft until after the 2026 postseason, the offensive running and outfield flycatching range dimensions could land him on a Phillies 2025 postseason series roster as a bench player, even if the work-in-progress Triple-A plate profile fundamentals do not overly excite.
Brief Explanation of the FaBIO Model
My Fielding- and Ballpark-Independent Outcomes (FaBIO) evaluation model sorts every plate appearance into one of 12 outcome bins (BB+HBP, K, IFFB, Pull-Third OFFB, Center-Third OFFB, Oppo-Third OFFB, Pull-Third LD, Center-Third LD, Oppo-Third LD, Pull-Third GB, Center-Third GB, Oppo-Third GB) and charges the pitcher and batter with their league's mean runs value for said particular event that season.
Dividing a batter's total number of expected runs by plate appearance (PA) yields expected runs per PA that can be percentile ranked relative to the league mean and standard deviation for that parameter amongst league batter qualifiers to arrive at their Overall Rating.
Its three subcomponents of BB+HBP Rating (based on BB+HBP per PA), Strikeout Avoid Rating (K Avoid, based on K per PA), and Batted Ball Profile Rating (expected runs per batted ball) are also reported to identify the path the batter traveled to reach their Overall Rating.
Overall Rating and Batted Ball Profile Rating of batters should be considered power- and speed-neutralized metrics since the real-world runs value of a single batter's typical OFFB or LD varies with their strength, and the expected runs value of their typical GB varies with their speed.
To better understand the Path to Batted Ball Profile, we will also examine percentile ratings for select batted ball event types (on a per-batted ball basis). To check how well expected batted ball outcomes match real-world ones, we will compute percentile ratings for hits (AVG) and isolated power (ISO, or simply extra bases) on batted balls (recognizing full well that these two parameters are neither fielding- nor ballpark-independent outcomes).
What most explains a batter's ability to generate hits (AVG) on batted balls is any LD, IFFB avoidance, Pull-Third OFFB, and Pull-Third GB avoidance. What most explains their ability to generate extra bases (ISO) on batted balls is any OFFB, Pull-Third OFFB, Pull-Third LD, and IFFB avoidance.
A percentile rating of 97 amounts to plus-plus (two standard deviations above the mean), 84 is plus (one standard deviation above the mean), 69 is half plus, 50 is average, 31 is half minus, 16 is minus, and three is minus-minus.
A new addition to this suite of evaluation models is the Offensive Running Rating. This tool quantifies how each relevant inning's run expectancy was impacted by the player's action or inaction as either a batter or baserunner on very specific types of plays that are more likely to involve one or both of their speed or offensive running techniques, plus acumen.
The evaluated batter and baserunner events are summarized in the graphic.
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