Crews tops latest Nats prospect ranking

MLB Pipeline released its midseason rankings of the top 100 prospects in baseball and the top 30 for each major league team, adding the 2023 draft class and trade deadline moves, and there’s no surprise who tops the Nationals’ list.

Dylan Crews, the No. 2 overall pick out of LSU, is the Nationals’ new top prospect, coming in at No. 1 on the team’s top 30 and No. 4 overall in the sport.

The outfielder was MLB Pipeline’s top-rated position player in this year’s draft, so it’s no wonder they hold him in high regard. But it was going to be a close call between him and fellow outfielder James Wood, who has been the Nats’ top prospect since the end of last season.

Wood is now the Nats No. 2 prospect (such a big drop) and the No. 7 overall prospect in baseball per MLB Pipeline. Both he and Crews have a major league ETA of 2024.

Third baseman Brady House is now the Nats’ No. 3 prospect while also becoming one of the highest-ranking newcomers in the top 100, landing at No. 43 after his promotion to Double-A Harrisburg earlier this summer. He rounds out the Nationals prospects in the top 100.

Crews and LSU teammate Paul Skenes (No. 3 overall) made some history for MLB Pipeline’s rankings. They are the highest-debuting pair of picks (Nos. 1-2 in the draft) in any of their top 100 lists.

They also made history as it relates to two former Nats prospects. Only Stephen Strasburg, who debuted at No. 2 on the 2010 preseason list, and Bryce Harper, who was No. 3 for the first time in 2011, beat or matched Crews and Skenes for the top individual debut.

As for the Nationals’ top 30, outfielder Daylen Lile made the biggest leap at this re-ranking, moving up 10 spots from No. 16 to No. 6.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in March 2022, the 2021 second-rounder earned a promotion to High-A Wilmington in mid-July by slashing .291/.381/.510 with 34 extra-base hits and 21 steals in 66 games for Single-A Fredericksburg.

Lile joins Crews, Wood, Elijah Green, Robert Hassell III and Cristhian Vaquero as the outfield prospects in the Nats’ top 10.

Second-round pick Yohandy Morales, a third baseman at Fredericksburg, debuts at No. 7 in the Nats’ top 30, while third-round pick Travis Sykora, a right-hander in the Florida Complex League, comes in at No. 11 and fourth-rounder Andrew Pinckney, an outfielder at Fredericksburg, at No. 20.

Trade deadline acquisitions Kevin Made (shortstop, No. 15) and DJ Herz (left-hander, No. 16) have also found their spots in the Nats top 30.

The Nats’ full top 30 prospect list per MLB Pipeline can be found here.