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Player Profile - Dylan Crews

With the MLB Draft coming up on July 9th, let's take a look at potential #1 overall pick, Dylan Crews. Born in 2002 in Florida, Crews quickly showed off his potential. He played for the USA Baseball 14U team and their 18U team that won a gold medal. Crews attended Lake Mary High School, where he played Varsity Baseball for four years and was considered a top MLB Prospect at the time. However, he withdrew his name from the draft after high school and announced his full commitment to play baseball at Louisiana State University. Crews immediately started at Right Field for LSU as a freshman in 2021. In his freshman season, Crews slugged at an astounding rate, batting .362 with 18 home runs, which set a record for the most home runs ever hit by an LSU freshman. In addition, he was named National Freshman of the Year by Perfect Game. After the 2021 season, Crews switched to Center Field and continued to play at a high level, earning Co-SEC Player of the Year in 2022 while hitting .349 with 22 home runs. In his final season with LSU in 2023, Crews led LSU to their 7th College World Series Title, batting .426 with 18 homers and winning the Golden Spikes Award given to the nation's best college baseball player. Crews is expected to make an immediate impact on the team that selects him, as he has exceptional speed, power, and hitting.

Crews has been described by many scouts as a five-tool player, which is very rare. A five-tool player excels at hitting for average, hitting for power, base running, throwing, and fielding. Crews’ main weakness is his high whiff percentage on changeups and sliders. However, Crews still had a very high average on both of those types of pitches.

Although he is likely the most talented player in the draft, Crews reportedly is not interested in being selected first overall to the Pirates. Crews and his agent are asking for a record-breaking $10 million signing bonus, which would surpass the $8.42 million bonus that was given to Spencer Torkelson in 2020. One potential reason why Crews and his agent might be asking for such a high bonus is to be rejected by the Pirates so that he can then be chosen by the Nationals. Joe Doyle of Future Star Series has stated that Crews "fancies the idea of playing in Washington” instead of Pittsburgh. Crews and his agent have “purportedly thrown gaudy signing bonus demands at the Pirates" to try and get Crews to be selected with the #2 overall pick to the Washington Nationals.

List of Awards: 2021 LSWA Louisiana Freshman of the Year, 2021 ABCA All-South Region First Team, 2021 Freshman All-SEC, 2021 Second-Team All-SEC, 2021 NCAA Eugene Regional All-Tournament Team, 2021 U.S. Collegiate National Team Member, 2021 First-Team Freshman All-American (Collegiate Baseball, D1 Baseball, NCBWA), 2021 Third-Team All-American (NCBWA, ABCA), 2021 Second-Team All-American (Perfect Game, D1 Baseball), 2021 Perfect Game National Freshman of the Year, 2022 U.S. Collegiate National Team Member, 2022 LSWA Hitter of the Year, 2022 NCAA Hattiesburg Regional All-Tournament Team, 2022 First-Team ABCA All-South Region, 2022 SEC Community Service Team, 2022 SEC All-Defensive Team, 2022 First-Team All-SEC, 2022 Golden Spikes Award Semifinalist, 2022 SEC Co-Player of the Year, 2022 Consensus First-Team All-American, 2023 SEC Community Service Team, 2023 SEC Academic Honor Roll, 2023 ABCA Gold Glove Team, 2023 SEC All-Defensive Team, 2023 First-Team All-SEC, 2023 SEC Player of the Year, 2023 SEC Male Athlete of the Year, 2023 NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team, 2023 College World Series All-Tournament Team, 2023 Consensus First-Team All-American, 2023 Golden Spikes Award Winner

Height, Weight, Age: 6’0”, 205 lbs, 21 years old

Citations: https://lsusports.net/sports/bsb/roster/player/dylan-crews/

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/10081911-mlb-rumors-dylan-crews-eying-record-breaking-10m-bonus-amid-pirates-nationals-buzz.amp.html