Justin Crawford is one of the top prospects in the Phillies organization. (Cheryl Pursell)
While Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas and Odubel Herrera have occasionally stabilized the position, the Phillies have struggled to find a consistent answer in center field since trading Shane Victorino in July of 2012.
There's some hope that in the not-so-distant future Justin Crawford — whom the Phillies selected in the first round of the 2022 MLB Draft — could not only stabilize the position, but become an impact player for the Phillies at a spot with so few difference makers.
Rob Thomson sounded bullish on Crawford when asked about the 21-year-old, who is currently hitting .318 for Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
"Really good," Thomson said of the reports he's received on Crawford this year. "He makes adjustments all the time. He's really good at that. He'll have a couple of bad at-bats or a bad swing, and then all of a sudden he lays out a good swing. He makes adjustments quickly, and he's a really good player. Really interesting."
For as much success as Crawford has had for the IronPigs so far this season, it took him until earlier this week to hit his first Triple-A home run.
Justin Crawford's first Triple-A roundtripper!@IronPigs | @Phillies | @PhilsPlayerDev | @MLBDevelops pic.twitter.com/XGeyT2NovD
Is hitting for power one of the things that Crawford needs to do more of before being called up to the majors?
"Not necessarily, not for me," Thomson said. "I think the power is going to come naturally. He's still young, and he's gonna grow, he's gonna get stronger. And they talk about he hits too many line drives, too many ground balls. I really don't care about that because I think all the other things will happen as he grows and gets reps and gets experience."
For his part, general manager Preston Mattingly — who previously served as the director of player development for the Phillies — believes the power is in there for Crawford. He also pointed out that Crawford's first home run of the year came off of Nolan McLean, who MLB Pipeline currently has ranked as the No. 5 prospect in the New York Mets' farm system.
"I mean, the home run honestly is not like a surprise from the standpoint of Justin has power," Mattingly said. "We know it's in there. It's just to me there's different reasons why it doesn't come out. But obviously, it's good to see him get a ball in the air off a really quality pitcher that he hit it off too."
For all that Crawford does well, we have already touched on some of the concerns about him. Like his four-time All-Star father, Carl, Justin is considered an excellent defender who also can utilize his tremendous speed to steal bases, something he's done 14 times so far this season. But he's homered just 13 times in 1,021 minor-league at-bats since being drafted by the Phillies. Thomson hinted at the fact that same evaluators are turned off by the 60.8% ground ball percentage that Crawford has this season. There's a fear that you can leg out some of those ground balls for hits in the minors, but you won't be able to do that at the highest level of the sport. For comparison, Bryson Stott is someone on the Phillies roster currently that's a contact hitter with speed. He has a 39% ground ball percentage in 2025.
While you can't find a person with bad things to say about Crawford as a person, there are very mixed evaluations on him throughout the sport. MLB Pipeline has Crawford ranked as the No. 56 prospect in baseball. But Aram Leighton of Just Baseball — who typically is very good at projecting players — doesn't have Crawford in his Top 100 prospects.
What do the Phillies make of how polarizing of a prospect Crawford seems to be?
"I can't speak of like how others view him. The one thing with Justin that we've known since he's gotten here is that he's done nothing but perform," Mattingly said. "I give credit to the kid. Honestly, he goes out there, plays every single day. The energy never wavers. His preparation is as good as it gets for a young kid.
"Is he the perfect player right now? No, but nobody is in the minor leagues, or they'd be up here," Mattingly continued. "Justin has continued to trend up since he's gotten here, since he signed and we think he's just scratching the surface. So, I mean, where they rank him, that's their choice. But I think we obviously know what we have in Justin, and we like the progress he's continuing to make."
As things stand right now, the Phillies have Rojas and Marsh in center field. They have an extremely left-handed lineup, so seemingly one of Marsh or Max Kepler would have to either be injured or no longer on the Phillies for there to be a fit for Crawford with them in 2025. It may be that Crawford becomes a piece that the Phillies dangle before the July 31 trade deadline to acquire an upgrade either in the outfield or the bullpen. Also possible is that he just spends most or all of the season at Triple-A, and isn't really a factor at the MLB level this year.
But the Phillies seem to really like the progress Crawford has continued to make. Could he be in play at some point in 2025?
"We'll see," Thomson said.
