The Kansas City Royals got a boost to their lineup with the recent call-up of MLB's No. 10 overall prospect Jac Caglianone. After getting drafted sixth overall in the 2024 MLB Draft, the 22-year-old dominated his way through the minor leagues, posting a .292/.358/.517 slash line, but his power is what caught everyone's eye. In 50 games between Double-A and Triple-A, Caglianone recorded a .553 slugging percentage with 15 home runs, nine doubles, and 56 RBI.
The Royals are hoping that his arrival can jump start an offense that's struggled so far, and they may have given the Philadelphia Phillies a blueprint on how to fix one of their biggest issues so far this season.
Justin Crawford could provide a spark for the Phillies' offense
The Phillies have an opportunity to follow in the Royals' footsteps with Justin Crawford, who's been lighting up Triple-A. Entering Friday, Crawford's hitting a career-best .349 with a .416 on-base percentage and .448 slugging percentage and has recorded 22 multi-hit games, including a 3-5 day on Sunday and a 3-3 day on Thursday.
Have another day, Justin Crawford!
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 2, 2025
The @Phillies' No. 3 prospect collects three hits for the Double-A @ReadingFightins in his 20th multihit game of the season. pic.twitter.com/dvPjdHSnlO
Ever since joining the Phillies farm system in 2022, Crawford has been a base-hit machine with 347 hits across 1,076 at-bats, good for a .322 average. He just dominated the month of May, hitting .378 with a .929 OPS and seven extra base hits in 23 games.
The 21-year-old center fielder has also shown the ability to hit both righties and lefties extremely well. So far through 46 at-bats against left-handed pitching this season, the left-handed center fielder is hitting .478/.520/.696, while maintaining a .313/.388/.380 line in 166 at-bats against right-handers.
However, the biggest concern with the Phillies No. 3 prospect has been his inability to lift the baseball, as his ground ball rate has hovered between 60 and 69 percent the last three seasons. There does seem to be some improvement there though, as his ground ball rate this season is 64.2 percent, meanwhile his line-drive rate is the highest of his career so far (21.6).
"He's an exciting guy," manager Rob Thomson said to the media in March about Crawford. "I know there's talk that they want him to get the ball up in the air, but I think he's fine where he's at right now."
When could we see Justin Crawford manning center field?
The Phillies' combination of Brandon Marsh and Johan Rojas hasn't panned out the way they'd hoped it would, as the two center fielders have a combined -0.1 bWAR entering Friday's action, leaving the Phillies as one of the worst teams in baseball when it comes to the production from the center field position.
After a solid March and April campaign where he hit .304 with a .732 OPS, Rojas struggled immensely in May, tallying just seven hits across 42 at-bats. Marsh, however, seemed to get into a groove at the beginning of May, hitting .389 with a .936 OPS through his first 13 games back from a right hamstring injury, but has cooled since, with a .172 average and .644 OPS since May 21.
So could we see Justin Crawford up in the big leagues sooner rather than later? If the current options keep scuffling, it can certainly be on the table for president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who's shown to be aggressive with prospects from time-to-time.
Just two years ago, the Phillies called up a young Johan Rojas from Double-A for the first series out of the All-Star break. At the time, Rojas, the Phillies' No. 6 prospect, was hitting .306 with a .845 OPS and 34 extra base hits in 320 at-bats, in addition to swiping 30 bags with Gold Glove-caliber defense. While Crawford's defense isn't at the same caliber as Rojas', we could see a similar timeline pan out for him if the duo of Marsh and Rojas continue to struggle at the plate.