Phillies take Justin Crawford with their first round pick

The Phillies had the 17th overall pick in the MLB draft this evening and decided to make it another pick of a former MLBer.

Here is the scouting report from Fangraphs on Crawford:

Crawford has among the most extreme variance of players in this class. He played much less than his peers during the summer showcase circuit season and showed a couple of swing changes throughout the 2021 calendar year, making it harder to get a real grip on his swing. Things were more mechanically typical late in 2021 and in ‘22, and there’s now increased confidence in Crawford’s bat. He still has an abbreviated, helicopter-style finish similar to D-backs shortstop Geraldo Perdomo’s left-handed swing, and he’ll bend at the waist and throw his bottom hand at the ball to spray contact to all fields, but Crawford is adept at doing this with the fat part of the bat, and he surprises you with how much damage he can do with this style of hitting. He tracks pitches well, he can move the barrel around, he’ll occasionally flash plus rotational explosiveness when he takes a max-effort swing, and his overall athleticism and physical projection make this contact/speed/present gap power package very exciting once you start anticipating that more strength will come. Though he didn’t have quite the same showcase track record, Crawford’s report reads a lot like a more-projectable Corbin Carroll’s at the same stage.

Maybe not the pick we were expecting, but after Brian Barber has admittedly nailed his last two first round picks, I think we can give him the benefit of the doubt.

Congrats, Justin!