Washington Nationals Star Took Major Step Forward To Address His Weakness
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The Washington Nationals know what type of season they have signed themselves up for this year.
With the opportunity to be aggressive in the free agency market to bring in some established stars to boost the roster, they opted to continue on their path of rebuilding, allowing their young players to get more reps in 2025.
That brings the potential for a lot of growing pains to be present.
While there are building blocks in place with CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. up the middle, and the top-end duo of MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin leading the rotation, the Nationals are hoping James Wood can continue his upward trajectory and Dylan Crews showcases the ceiling that prompted him to be taken second overall in the 2023 draft.
Crews will be given time to learn on the job.
Barring being virtually unplayable in the field and at the plate, Washington will give him the runway to experience life as a Major League for the entire season.
What he needs to work on is hitting breaking pitches.
According to Baseball Savant, when Crews saw a four-seam fastball 144 times last year, he had a batting average of .314 and slugging percentage of .657. Against 69 sinkers his batting average and slugging percentage was .263. He batted .250 and slugged .500 against the 52 cutters he saw.
Those are great numbers.
But against breaking pitches, he went went 4-for-41 with 17 strikeouts, and he didn't record a single hit when facing the 80 sliders that were thrown to him.
With that type of scouting report, pitchers are not going to throw him many fastballs, something he is aware of and is prepare himself for by trying to improve his approach against off-speed pitches.
That's why he was pleased with himself on Saturday when he hit a bloop RBI single off a slider against the Houston Astros during their spring game.
"That's beautiful. Hey, we had a chance to drive in a run there by moving the baseball. He stayed in the middle of the field, stayed on it. Very good at-bat. That's what we're talking about. The whole process was good," manager Dave Martinez said per Mark Zuckerman of MASN.
Crews will have to do that repeatedly.
One bloop single in a spring training game that doesn't matter isn't going to change the book that's out on him unless he consistently shows he can do some damage against pitches that aren't fastballs.
But that moment was a great step in the right direction.
"It definitely helps for sure. You're not going out there blind this year. I've got a little over a month now. I just think it's full-go now as far as what to expect," Crews said.
