How Much More Leash do the Nationals Give Dylan Crews?

Since a Cinderella World Series run in 2019, Washington Nationals fans have watched their team struggle for the last five seasons. The hope was that a talented group of youngsters would start to move the franchise forward again in 2025.

Things haven’t quite taken off for the group yet as the team sits fourth in the NL East at 22-27. However, the offense has shown signs of encouragement with the kids, of course, leading the way.

Outfielder James Wood and shortstop CJ Abrams have been two of the top hitters in the NL. Wood has been a machine with 11 doubles, 12 homers, 30 RBIs and a .917 OPS. Abrams has been stellar himself, batting .313 with a .941 OPS and nine steals.

Infielder Amed Rosario is having his best offensive season in years. Catcher Keibert Ruiz and first baseman Nathaniel Lowe have had flashes of success and are just shy of average in by measure of wRC+ (Lowe, 94; Ruiz, 96).

All of them are under the age of 30.

Another member of the Under-30 offensive club who fans hoped would break out is outfielder Dylan Crews. The 23-year-old got his introduction to The Show when he made his MLB debut last season and was looking to be even better in 2025 as the team worked to step forward into contention.

Unfortunately, he has struggled at the plate to start the season. Despite hitting homers in his last two games, Crews owns just a .196/.266/.354 slash line in 45 games. He’s already struck out 48 times compared to just 11 walks.

So far, the Nationals have been content to let Crews work through his struggles at the Major League level, as teams often do with players of his caliber. One wonders, though, just how long that will continue to be the case.

How Much More Leash Will the Nationals Give Dylan Crews?

It’s easy to forget that Crews hasn’t even been a member of the Nationals organization for two years yet. In fact on this date in 2023, he was still helping LSU baseball work their way toward an NCAA championship.

Crews would be drafted second overall by the Nationals later that summer. He would get to work immediately, starting at Washington’s Florida Complex League team before working his way up to Double-A by the end of the year.

He’d start there again in 2024 before moving on to Triple-A. With a combined .275/.351/.455 slash line and 30 doubles, six triples, 18 homers, 97 RBIs, and 29 steals in 135 games, he was already looking the part. So just over a year after being drafted, he would be making his MLB debut.

His first taste of the big leagues went the way it does for many rookies: flashes of talent with bumps in the road. Crews slashed .218/.288/.353 in 31 games last season but also had five doubles, three homers, and 12 steals.

But instead of taking a step forward in 2025, he took a step backwards. That’s easy to do when you just plain stop hitting the ball.

Crews has seen his strikeout rate spike way up, from a tolerable 19.7% last year to a much more concerning 28.1% this year. It’s not because he’s all of a sudden become significantly less patient, though.

Crews has seen a +0.8% increase in his in-zone swing rate and a +1.8% increase in his chase rate from year to year. That alone wouldn’t result in over an eight percent increase in strikeout rate.

Missing the ball entirely would, though. Somehow, Crews has seen his in-zone contact rate drop all the way from 86.3% to 86.0% and his chase contact rate go way down from 56.3% to 39.3%. Both marks are below league average.

Much of that new lack of contact has inexplicably started coming against fastballs. Crews whiffed against them just 9.9% of the time as he had a .299 batting average. This year, he’s whiffing 26.1% of the time against them and has just a .232 average.

It’s hard to say exactly what could be causing the issue. Perhaps it’s the dreaded sophomore slump. Maybe after some sample size the league’s pitchers have figured out a specific way to pitch him.

Crews was graded highly on his hit skills coming into the league so he has it in him to improve, but turning that trend around on a dime isn’t easy, even for veterans. Sometimes it takes a reset in the minors, or in the Nationals’ case, no more leash.