The news everyone was waiting for on a Dylan Crews debut looks to be coming on Monday at Nationals Park against the Bronx Bombers. The game was nearly a sell-out prior to the Crews news of a call-up, and now will almost certainly get above the 39,000 attendance level. This is also the first game in Nats Park for Juan Soto as a member of the NY Yankees.
As long as Crews does not exceed the 130 at-bat threshold, he will retain his prospect status into next season and be PPI eligible which is also notable for a call-up at this point. Most likely, Crews will get very close to the 130 at-bats, and the team will manage that mark. This should give him a nice 5-week taste of the big leagues.
With James Wood graduating from prospect status earlier this month, Crews moved back to the top of the Nats’ prospect rankings as the team’s No. 1, and the No. 4 prospect in all of baseball.
Expect initially an outfield of Wood in left field, Jacob Young in center field, and Crews in right field. That will push Alex Call to the fourth outfield spot, and a chance to sub-in and take some DH spots for the rest of the season.
This is the future, and general manager Mike Rizzo is pushing his chips into the middle. He is also letting pending free agents like Soto know that the Nats are basically coming out of this rebuild and looking for top free agents — or as Rizzo worded it this week that he would be making “…A couple of shrewd offseason acquisitions…”
For those who forgot, Soto had been working out in pregames on first basemen defensive drills. While the Nats have their outfield-of-the-future set, they have a need for a top first baseman.
The Nationals have an open spot on their 40-man roster, and when Crews is activated the team will have to send down a player. Expect it to be one of the right-handed young players, but with rosters expanding on September 1 to 28-players, the demotion should not be long.
In July of last year, Crews was drafted No. 2 overall by the Nationals from LSU where he was the Golden Spikes Award winner after he helped to lead LSU to a national championship with his former college teammate, and No. 1 draft pick Paul Skenes of the Pirates. To add some drama, the Nats play the Pirates in Pittsburgh in two weeks.
Last month, Crews was chosen as an All-Star for the Futures Game. At Triple-A Rochester, the month of August been his best stretch batting .306 with a .908 OPS so far.
Also notable, by calling up Crews now, this could burden the Nats with both Crews and Wood on the same free agent timeframe after the 2030 season which could be defining the Nats next competitive window.
Tickets are going fast for Monday, and here is the link to purchase tickets.
