Justin Crawford is a polarizing prospect. But it’s set up for him to get a chance with the Phillies soon.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — When Justin Crawford arrived at the Carpenter Complex in 2023 for his first spring training, the Phillies put him in the batting cage against a cutting-edge pitching machine and programmed it to throw like an ace.

It didn’t go well.

“He was getting hit in the mouth,” Luke Murton recalled.

Not literally, of course. But Crawford struggled. A lot. And in front of “some very high-ranking people in the organization,” to boot, as Murton remembers. It could’ve been a confidence-shaking drill for the 2022 first-round pick and touted center field prospect.

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Murton, then the Phillies' minor league hitting director, intervened after a while. Like the cornerman at a lopsided heavyweight fight, he grabbed the proverbial towel and got ready to heave it.

“I was like, ‘Hey, Justin, you’re good, man. We’re good,’” Murton said this week. “And he’s like, ‘No, I’m not. I want more at-bats.’ He did not care who was in the room. It did not matter to him. He wanted to get his work, did not shy away from failure.

“As soon as he did that, I was like, ‘Oh, whoa.’ Because I gave him an out, and he told me he didn’t want it. He’s like, ‘I got it,’ and got back in there and competed. When a guy does that, it’s impressive.”

Two years later, it’s all right there for Crawford. He batted .321 with a .374 on-base percentage and 89 steals over the last two seasons. The Phillies promoted him to double A after the All-Star break last July. He has filled out his 6-foot-2 frame, checking in this spring at 195 pounds after getting drafted at 160.

And now, he’s in major league camp for the first time, and ...

OK, let’s pump the brakes. Crawford, the 21-year-old son of former All-Star outfielder Carl Crawford, won’t make the Phillies’ opening-day roster. He’s wearing No. 81 and has a temporary locker on the opposite side of the clubhouse from Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and the other high-rent superstars.

But it also might not be long before Crawford joins them.

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Because when Dave Dombrowski ran the Red Sox’s front office, he called up outfielder Andrew Benintendi from double A in 2016 and third baseman Rafael Devers after only a handful of triple-A games in 2017. Years earlier, when Dombrowski was in charge of the Tigers' baseball operations, Hall of Famer Al Kaline would tell him, “The good ones come fast.”

Dombrowski recalled Kaline’s words recently in discussing top shortstop prospect Aidan Miller. They apply to Crawford, too, especially because the Phillies have had seven — seven! — different opening-day center fielders in seven years since Odúbel Herrera made three consecutive opening-day starts from 2015 to 2017.

“That’s definitely a goal of mine, for sure,” Crawford said of stopping the center-field turnstile. “I’ve definitely thought about that in certain ways. But I try to keep it to just being in the moment.”

Given the polarizing opinions on Crawford within the scouting community, it’s probably the healthiest outlook.

Upon getting drafted 17th overall by the Phillies, Crawford made a bold claim: He said he could outrun his famous father.

In a footrace, that is.

Carl Crawford was a .290 hitter and a four-time All-Star in 15 major league seasons. He led MLB in triples and steals four times apiece. He made $170 million in his career and appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2022.

But although Justin Crawford is only just getting started in pro ball, he ran the 60-yard dash in 6.11 seconds in a pre-draft showcase.

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And his sprint speed is as undeniable now as it was then.

The debate over Crawford stems from his predisposition to hit the ball on the ground. In 2023, he batted .332 with a .392 on-base percentage between low-A Clearwater and high-A Jersey Shore, but 83 of his 116 hits were singles. His ground-ball rate was nearly 70%, extreme for any level of competition.

Like his father, Crawford is a left-handed hitter with an open stance and a long stride. Phillies officials maintain that he will drive the ball more consistently as he gets older and stronger. But they’ve also encouraged him to stand taller at the plate, an adjustment designed to help raise his bat path and enable him to launch the ball more easily.

Crawford’s ground-ball rate dipped to 61% last season. Better, but still extreme. For context, Johan Rojas led the Phillies with a 57.1% ground-ball rate last season and batted .243 with a .601 OPS.

“We have never said, ‘We want his launch angle to be X,’” said Murton, now the Phillies' minor league director. “In our heads it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s just get him to hit more line drives.’ It has not been about home runs. It’s just, ‘How do we hit more line drives?’

“If people watch him play or take batting practice, I don’t think anybody questions his ability to impact the ball. Justin has power, and as he continues to get bigger, stronger, he’s going to have even more power. Ultimately, it’s just learning to continue to grow and hit the ball at the right angles. It’s something that he’s worked on and we’ve worked on with him, and I think just over time it’ll continue to improve as he goes.”

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But it’s also fair to wonder whether hitting the ball on the ground is really so undesirable for a player who runs like Crawford.

“With his speed and the shift being banned, I don’t know why people think it’s such a bad thing about ground balls,” said one scout from a National League team. “I understand why you want the line drives to turn into doubles and triples. But he’s going to steal 75 bases a year if [the Phillies] let him, so he’ll turn those ground balls into extra bases anyway.”

Another NL scout, who said he’s a “big fan” of Crawford’s, described him as “old school in that he uses the field and has speed.”

In 2025, though, “old school” isn’t always a compliment. Among the half-dozen or so top 100 prospect lists that were released in the last few weeks, Crawford ranged from No. 41 (The Athletic) and No. 64 (MLB Pipeline) to No. 96 (Baseball America). ESPN.com and Fangraphs excluded him from their top 100.

As much as Crawford gets dinged for all the ant-killing grounders, his backers point to his knack for getting the bat to the ball. He struck out in only 18.7% of his plate appearances last season, including 16.1% after moving up to double A.

Making contact is a focal point.

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“I’ve been taught my entire life that nothing’s worse than striking out,” Crawford said. “Put the ball in play any way you can. Definitely when I get to two strikes, I take pride in trying to put the ball in play, trying to get on base. Knowing that I’m fast and that’s one of my strengths, there’s times where a ground ball could be the game-winning run.”

Ideally, Crawford will keep developing in double A and triple A this season. But it’s hard to ignore the opportunities that exist in the majors.

The Phillies signed Max Kepler for $10 million to be the primary left fielder, but he’s coming off an eight-homer, .682-OPS season for the Twins. Brandon Marsh is set to move back to center field, although questions remain about his ability to hit left-handed pitching. Rojas is a dazzling defender but hasn’t hit enough to hold the center-field job; he’s slated to be the fourth outfielder. There isn’t much veteran depth in triple A.

It’s all set up for Crawford to get his chance. It’s so close now.

Last March, when a team of Phillies minor leaguers faced the Tigers in MLB’s creatively named “Spring Breakout,” Crawford led off with a single, stole second, and scored on Miller’s single through the left side.

Back in the dugout, Crawford and Miller made a deal.

“We were like, ‘We can get used to this,’” Miller said.

A year later, they have lockers next to each other in big-league camp. Soon, they could have spots in the lineup.

“We want to play with each other for a long time and at a high level,” Crawford said. “That’s the goal, for sure. As soon as that can happen, that’d be definitely really, really cool.”