Behind The Justin Crawford Promotion – Speculation

All are thrilled and many were surprised when news broke that top-3 Phillies prospect OF Justin Crawford would start the season at AAA Lehigh Valley.  However, there hasn’t been much talk of why it happened or what it means for the 2025 Phillies.

1. He Earned It.  This is a speculative piece, but let that not take away from the player and his accomplishments.  In 40 games last season at AA Reading Crawford posted .333/.380/.455 and then this spring made the most of his MLB appearances slashing .364/.462/.364 all while looking every bit like an MLB Player.
2. The Phillies Legitimately Think He’s Ready. This is 1(a) to the above, but it could very well be that  further meaning in the roster decision is too much extrapolation. It is more cut and dried based on the above numbers and the internal evaluation of the player.  Indeed in his first two games he’s put up .375/.444/.375 showing this isn’t too much for him.
3. The Phillies Really Want To Challenge Him.  Since Crawford was drafted in the first round of the 2022 draft, 17th overall, out of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, he’s really never faced any long periods of adversity as a professional. You could say his numbers in 5 games with Clearwater at the end of his draft year didn’t go great, but that’s a super-small sample and but a blip on the radar.  Much has been written about Crawford’s swing and launch angle and ground-ball percentage and all of those things.  But, at the end of the day, he’s still been a very productive player.  Perhaps the Phillies want to use the challenge of the promotion as a development tool in order to make subtle changes to Crawford’s swing.  Certainly, no one has plans for some kind of Scott Kingery uppercut nonsense, but a cleaner bat path and a more line-drive attack could be in order.  Or, maybe not. He’s looked really good when we’ve seen him live in Reading and on TV during the spring.  There’s line drives there, not just all grounders.  And while the ground balls play for him, because of his top-level speed and because his exit velocity is so high, it’s not all that exclusively and even when it is it’s not all bad.  But, look at that slugging in the small samples of MLB Spring Training and two games of AAA.  It’s a lot of singles. Watching him Friday night I said to someone, “I think his hands are too high.”  The response was, “No, he can have his hands there, but he needs to load a bit lower to get a more level route to the ball.”
4. The Phillies Don’t Want To Trade Him.  And, why would they?  They’ve been trying to solve the center field position ever since Shane Victorino was traded.  But there have been whispers that Crawford was included in a package to get LHP Garrett Crochet from the White Sox last season at the deadline.  If the Phillies had any designs on maybe using Crawford as a blue-chip trade piece, you’d think they’d let him rake in Double-A for another 40 to 80 games to start this season.  The risk is that he comes to Triple-A and struggles and the questions start getting louder and they re-make his swing and he goes into a slump and it spirals from there.  See also:  JP Crawford.  The flip side, of course, is that should Justin have great success at Triple-A, he becomes an MLB-ready commodity and worth even more on the open market.
5. There Could Be A Mid-Season Opening In Philadelphia.  So perhaps Crawford isn’t the trade piece at all.  Perhaps that’s Johan Rojas, or because he’s another lefty, Brandon Marsh.  The Phillies could move an MLB player at the deadline and have the replacement in Triple-A ready to go.  Of course, you always want and need depth.  Injuries could happen and ineffectiveness is always a possibility.  Rojas has options and could swap spots with Crawford if it ever came to that.

Admittedly, the promotion caught us off guard here, and the voices asking, “Hey, what’s going on here?” were getting louder.  But sometimes it is what it is.  It’s fun watching good players.  Go Pigs!

See you at the park,

@Kram207