Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Minor League Season Predictions

Top Ranking Prospect
Dylan Crews

If you don't think following along with Dylan Crews hasn't been fun, you either have been living under a rock and don't know who Crews is or hate baseball. Crews is so far out in front of all other draft prospects right now it's not even funny. There's a very good chance that he breaks the all-time signing bonus record for a draft prospect.

Crews' numbers at LSU are otherworldly. He is batting .529/.653/.954 with 19 (nine home runs, ten doubles) total extra-base hits in just 118 plate appearances. That's a rate of about 46 home runs and 51 doubles a season. Batting over .500 and having a slugging percentage approaching one thousand might not even be the most impressive part of his stat line. He's walked over double the amount of times he has struck out with a 27:12 BB:K ratio. That comes out to a 23.4% walk rate and a 10.8% K-rate.

The cherry on top is the exit velocity of over 100 MPH. Sure, it's with an aluminum bat, but you don't maintain an exit velocity over 100 MPH on bat composition alone. Dylan Crews is playing college baseball like it's MLB The Show on rookie difficulty. He has gotten a hit in all but one of his games this year. Even in that one game, he went hitless, he still drew a walk, meaning he has reached base in every single contest. Of his 24 games played, 14 are multi-hit affairs.

Crews is an above-average runner with a strong arm in the outfield. He's mostly played centerfield for LSU this season, where he has shown the talent to be an average to slightly above-average defender up the middle. However, many project him to be a right fielder, where his fielding would play way up. But the fact he could eventually end up as a center fielder long-term is putting the finishing touches on a perfect prospect profile.

There's no doubt that when the Pirates draft Crews, he'll be one of the highest-ranking prospects in baseball. He might even clock in the top ten out of college; he's that good. The Pirates might have taken the best high school hitter in Termarr Johnson and the best college hitter in Crews the draft has seen in almost forever in the past two drafts.