Phillies Eyeing Justin Crawford Promotion, One Thing Is Holding Them Back

Philadelphia Phillies fans finally got their wish when Otto Kemp was called up from Triple-A.

After he was tearing up minor league competition with Lehigh Valley, the decision makers felt it was time to see what he could do in the bigs.

It's been a mixed result -- with more positives than negatives -- but it's still been nice to see a new face contribute on a roster that largely was unchanged after two straight disappointing exits in the postseason.

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However, there's another prospect this fanbase has been clamoring to see, and it's not clear exactly when they are going to get their wish despite this Phillies outfield unit being one of the worst offensive groups in Major League Baseball.

Justin Crawford, who has done nothing but hit at the Triple-A level in 2025 with a .325/.406/.424 slash line, is the next youngster fans want to see debut in The Show.

It's not hard to understand why.

Philadelphia's outfield group is 25th in OPS. Nick Castellanos is the sole outfielder with an OPS+ and wRC+ over the league average of 100, with his numbers being at 102 and 104, respectively. Brandon Marsh has rebounded from his poor start, but his 89 wrC+ and 85 OPS+ figures leave much to be desired. Offseason signing Max Kepler has been disastrous, with his OPS+ of 82 and wRC+ of 84 putting him closer to being a DFA candidate than an eventual difference maker. And that's not even including Johan Rojas or Weston Wilson.

The Phillies need help, and it seems like they have an internal option who could provide that.

So what's holding them back?

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A combination of things have stopped Philadelphia from calling up their third-ranked prospect, although Matt Gelb of The Athletic (subscription required) reported "the Phillies have been considering a Crawford promotion for weeks."

Mainly this boils down to playing time.

"The one thing, if you're bringing Justin Crawford up at this point, he needs to play," Dave Dombrowski said, per Gelb. "So that's the main thing. So we need to kind of just sort out our own situation here and see when he comes up that he's going to be a guy that's playing all the time."

This is a notable statement for two reasons.

The first is that it sounds like there's a chance Crawford won't get called up at any point this season if the outfield remains full, regardless of how they are performing since the current group hasn't exactly played their way into job security.

That could change depending on injuries or anything else that occurs, but the plan seems to be that Crawford will remain on the farm unless there is a full-time opening for him.

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Perhaps more concerningly, though, because they have Crawford waiting in the wings, that could prevent Philadelphia from being aggressive to acquire a Major League bat in the outfield, which would be a major mistake.

Either way, the Phillies are thinking themselves into a pretzel on this situation.

While it's easier to make decisions from outside the organization compared to inside it, the fact they are not considering reshaping this current outfield unit by promoting Crawford and acquiring someone via trade is hard to believe.

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