Nationals Star Prospect Predicted for Incredibly Productive First Big League Season

An emerging Washington Nationals player has been predicted for a very strong first full Major League campaign.

Mar 4, 2025; West Palm Beach, Florida, USA; Washington Nationals outfielder Dylan Crews (3) catches a fly ball against the St. Louis Cardinals during the third inning at CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches. | Rich Storry-Imagn Images

The Washington Nationals are entering the 2025 season with relatively low expectations.

They are looking up at three teams in the National League East who are legitimate World Series contenders: the Atlanta Braves, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. Overcoming them will be a challenge.

Coming off back-to-back 71-win campaigns, no one is expecting a major jump from a Nationals team that opted not to make a splash in the offseason. Instead, several veterans were signed to short-term deals to plug a few holes on the roster.

Those additions will undoubtedly help raise the team’s floor. Washington will be more competitive, but if they are going to make a real move up the standings, it will be on the back of their young players.

One of those youngsters that the Nationals are counting on to carry the load is right fielder Dylan Crews.

The No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft was moved aggressively through the organization’s minor league system. He made his MLB debut on Aug. 26, 2024 after only 135 minor league games.

Crews was already playing in Double-A games just months after being drafted and was in Triple-A early in his first year as a professional before being promoted to the Big Leagues.

His first taste of the Major Leagues wasn’t great with a slash line of .218/.288/.353 with three home runs, five doubles, one triple and 12 stolen bases.

The slow start certainly hasn’t dimmed his outlook; Crews is a unanimous top six prospect entering the 2025 season, with some outlets having him ranked as high as No. 2.

At this point, the only thing Crews is lacking is experience. Once he gets comfortable at the highest level, his immense potential will begin to shine through and his statistics will reflect that.

Once he finds his stride, Crews is going to start filling out the stat sheet.

Matt Brandon of Sports Illustrated believes that he will start to heat up with the weather, finding his groove a few months into the 2025 campaign and finishing with an incredibly productive stat line.

“I sense that he needs two to three months to get comfortable at the major league level. His volume of at-bats should be an asset for his counting stats – .265/75/15/65/20 seems like a reasonable floor for his rookie campaign,” he wrote.

Production of that volume will have Crews right in the mix for the National League Rookie of the Year Award.

The potential for that jump in production is certainly there.

While his raw numbers weren’t great during his debut in 2024, there were some very encouraging underlying metrics. He had an average exit velocity of 89 mph and a hard-hit rate of 45.2%.

His strong grasp of the strike zone with a below average 19.7% strike out rate and solid 8.3% walk rate, coupled with some positive regression on his batting average on balls in play of .253 should result in a breakout campaign for the emerging outfielder.