{"id":19934,"date":"2026-11-11T08:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19934"},"modified":"2026-11-11T08:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:22:10","slug":"would-you-actually-support-a-crews-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19934","title":{"rendered":"Would you actually support a Crews trade?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Crews could be on the trading block. Photo via Crews’ instagram page.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Surprising news to wake up to this morning; the Athletic’s Nats beat reporter Spencer Nusbaum, reporting from the GM meetings at the Aria hotel in Las Vegas (not a bad GM meeting spot), reports that a “dearth of right-handed outfielders” on the FA market now has teams calling the Nats about their quartet of RH-hitting outfielders, with one name popping up more than others: Dylan Crews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our RH-hitting MLB OF depth (James Young, Daylen Lile, Andrew Pinckney) have all piqued some interest in trade, but each of these guys has limiting factors (Young just signed an extension and the Nats are apparently taking him off the table, Lile just finished a break-out season and is two years from even seeing Arbitration, and Pinckney is basically a replacement-level 4th outfielder right now), but Dylan Crews? Teams see an opportunity in the Nats current config, correctly reading the situation that Crews may be out of a starting job in 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wood is a marquee corner MVP candidate corner outfielder, Lile is now a gold-glove caliber left fielder with 20-homer capabilities, and Young was a Gold Glove finalist last year. I think any other team in the majors would take that starting set in terms of production, defensive capability, and cost. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for Crews, who slashed just .223\/.289\/.374 and now has nearly 900 MLB plate appearances with similar numbers and negligible improvement in his first three seasons. The team did a decent job mixing these guys in with a DH spot last year to spread the playing time … but wouldn’t you rather have a DH spot go to a 1B-type instead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m going to articulate what’s been creeping into my back brain for some time now: this may be what Crews is. An incredibly promising college player who just can’t make the transition to the majors for whatever reason. Tom Boswell used to intone that after around 900 ABs in the majors … a player is who he is. Crews is now right at that point. I’ve absolutely resisted this notion, given his college career and his draft pedigree, and have looked for excuses for his mediocracy for years (especially after Wyatt Langford blew up). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But … is this something we should entertain?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Nats get presented what they want, a “controllable Starting Pitcher” … I think Crews could be dealt. It’d be a classic “dealing from a position of depth” move to acquire something they don’t necessarily have. They could absolutely go to war in 2027 with Lile-Young-Wood as their starting OF, with the very capable Pinckney as the 4th outfielder (he’s a CF-capable guy who is very solid defensively). The OF depth chart in the system has a bit of a gap now in the OF after trading Franklin, but there’s still a couple of names in the upper levels of the minors who could be intriguing (Phillip Glasser or Sam Peterson in AAA, Nick Mitchell in AA) if we suddenly needed coverage, and then longer term we’ve got another set of solid hitters coming up in A-ball who could present right around the time Wood hits free agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I’d be onboard with such a move; Crews can get a change of scenery to try a different approach, and we could net another starter to help fill out the 2027 rotation. I fully realize he may get to a new organization, find a new approach, and make this trade look stupid. Fair enough; the 2027 Nats are in a great position to take the leap to contenders and we need pitching more than hand-holding a bonus baby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprising news to wake up to this morning; the Athletic’s Nats beat reporter Spencer Nusbaum, reporting from the GM meetings at the Aria hotel in Las Vegas (not a bad GM meeting spot), reports that a “dearth of right-handed outfielders” on the FA market now has teams calling the Nats about their quartet of RH-hitting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19935,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19934\/revisions\/19935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}