This is not to say he is a doomed prospect, but just to indicate the work ahead.
All of the reports on Crawford have been poor. This matches my looks as well. He looks the part, but there is a ton of physical development still to be done. He is very fast, and I haven't done a defensive review, but I do think that side will be good.
Offensively, the swing doesn't visually look terrible, but he does not use his lower half well and the swing is all arms, and he just does not have that kind of strength, especially it looks like in the wrists. The end result is the opposite of guys who just find the ball with the barrel. He has knack for just making bad contact and just topping the ball right into the ground and his swing plane just generally has no lift (likely back to the not using his lower half). Right now he is surviving on decent pitch recognition and a combination of speed and low-A defenses being poor.
It all sort of goes back to why I didn't love the pick at the time. He already had some scouts not enthused and for my teams the Phillies overdrafted him. He is a real project and they just are not an org that has had any minor league success with projects. He is only 19 and there is raw athleticism, but the raw stats are hiding how bad it is right now.
