The Phillies proved their trust in Justin Crawford by making him their Opening Day center fielder. So far, MLB Pipeline’s No. 48 overall prospect has shown why Philadelphia made the move.
Ahead of Wednesday’s series finale against the Cubs, Crawford -- the Phillies’ starter in center field in 16 of their first 17 games -- is 15-for-52 (.288) at the plate. The fleet-footed outfielder has four doubles, a triple and an RBI as well as a stolen base.
At least early on, Crawford doesn’t seem overmatched. But with a sky-high ground-ball rate and limited power, there are understandable concerns about his offensive ceiling going forward.
Here are a few areas in which Crawford could improve his potential at the plate.
All stats below are entering play Tuesday unless noted otherwise.
Batted-ball profile
Crawford’s penchant for hitting the ball on the ground appears to be a feature of his game, not a bug. After running a high ground-ball rate in the Minor Leagues -- including a 60.7% mark in Triple-A in 2025 -- Crawford has hit 26 of his first 37 MLB batted balls on the ground (70.3%). That’s the fourth-highest rate in MLB this season, and while it’s likely to come down -- the record under Statcast tracking is 68.0% by Raimel Tapia in 2021 -- it might not be by much.
Being unable to get the ball in the air consistently, simply put, will limit Crawford’s capabilities on offense. Only 16 players under Statcast tracking have run a ground-ball rate of 60% or higher in a season (min. 300 batted balls), and only three of those seasons -- from Christian Yelich in 2015 and Dee Strange-Gordon in 2015 and 2017 -- resulted in a batting average of .300 or better. The highest OPS by any player in that group was Yelich’s .782 for the Marlins in ’15.
The median numbers from that group of players -- a .285 average, a .718 OPS and a 96 OPS+ -- offer a ballpark figure for what Crawford can offer. Particularly for a 22-year-old rookie, you’d think the Phillies would probably take it. But the talented young outfielder could be capable of more.
Strange-Gordon’s ’15 and ’17 seasons offer a great example for what Crawford’s ceiling might look like. In an All-Star 2015 campaign for Miami, Strange-Gordon won the National League batting title with a .333 average, stole 58 bases and won both the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Awards at second base. Two years later, he hit .308, stole 60 bags and put up 3.7 bWAR. Crawford might not be able to reach those numbers year in and year out, but Strange-Gordon’s success shows a path for Crawford to become a key part of the Phillies’ lineup.
Stance and swing
Crawford is an outlier around the Major Leagues in terms of his batting stance and swing, each of which explains a lot of his ground-ball tendencies.
During an average at-bat, he stands 33.8 inches from home plate. If that seems far, it is: Crawford’s distance from the plate is the third highest in MLB, behind only Giancarlo Stanton (34.8 inches) and Aaron Judge (33.9). But without the natural strength and power of those Yankees sluggers, it’s harder for Crawford to make solid contact on pitches toward the outside part of the dish. Standing 6-foot-2, Crawford doesn’t have the height of Stanton (6-foot-5) or Judge (6-foot-7), either; the two Yankees stars’ longer arms allow them to stand back but still cover more of the plate.
Crawford ranks 10th in MLB in terms of lowest intercept point, the average point at which a player’s bat is nearest to the baseball on a swing, at 4.4 inches behind the front of home plate. That and Crawford’s attack direction -- 11 degrees toward the opposite field, the most extreme in MLB -- explain why he rarely pulls the ball. Only eight of Crawford’s 37 batted balls (21.6%) in 2026 have been pulled, seven of which were grounders. In an era of pulled-air contact, Crawford isn’t getting much.
While Crawford’s unique stance and swing make him who he is -- a highly talented contact hitter with elite sprint speed -- he has plenty of room to unlock more power at the plate.
Plate discipline
If Crawford never does wind up hitting for power, he still has some gains to make in terms of his plate discipline. He’s doing passably in terms of his 7.4% walk rate (in the 31st percentile of MLB hitters) and his 22.2% strikeout rate (49th percentile), but there are other places he can improve.
For one, most high-contact hitters, such as the Giants’ Luis Arraez, the Guardians’ Steven Kwan or the Rays’ Chandler Simpson, rarely ever swing and miss. Crawford’s whiff rate of 24.2% is still above average (it ranks in the 57th percentile), but it’s far from elite.
Likely due to his inexperience and lack of home run pop, Crawford is also seeing a rather high proportion of pitches in the zone: 51.6%, a ways above the MLB average of 48.8%. But he’s only swinging at 64.9% of in-zone offerings, below the 67.0% league average. This early in the season, that’s a matter of only a few pitches, but Crawford will need to be more willing to swing at strikes if pitchers continue to pound the zone against him.
And while it has worked out for the Phils rookie so far, Crawford has shown a tendency toward swinging at the first pitch, doing so 38.9% of the time compared to an MLB average of 30.1%. While he’s 4-for-9 with a double on those 0-0 offerings -- and statistics show hitters do fare well when ambushing the first pitch -- Crawford could benefit from working deeper counts more often.