Under the Radar: The Nationals Player No One is Talking About

If I asked you to name the four best fantasy baseball assets on the Washington Nationals right now, you could probably come up with very reasonable answers. You have likely heard about the unbelievable heaters that C.J. Abrams and James Wood are on right now. They are two of the top ten hitters in fantasy baseball this year. There’s a good chance you have heard about the “veteran” having a great season in the 26-year-old Luis Garcia, Jr. Then there is the one-category superstar in Nasim Nunez, who leads all of baseball with 37 steals and who is hitting .277 over the last 30 days. Maybe you also would have said Curtis Mead if you remembered his unbelievable last month (.338/.430/.581), but he is now on the Boston Red Sox. Who you wouldn’t think of is a player off almost everyone’s radar right now: Dylan Crews.

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Dylan Crews: Under the Radar

Remember Dylan Crews? He’s the guy who was the number two overall pick in 2023 and burst onto the scene with 10 home runs and 17 steals in just 85 games in 2025 as a 23-year-old. But then something strange happened. Initially thought to be part of the young, promising Nationals core, Crews was sent to AAA to start the season and didn’t debut in MLB until almost two months later, on May 19th. He had a .345 OBP and a .432 SLG in AAA, so the Nationals deemed him ready.

Unfortunately, for the first six weeks of his time with the big club, it looked like he wasn’t ready. He hit .228 in June with a .386 SLG and a 2.6% walk rate. But in July, something clicked. This month, he is hitting .233/.395/.417 with three home runs and a 17% walk rate. In the last two weeks, his slash line is up to .333/.514/.630 (heading into Monday night). That’s quite a Bondsian line over his last 40 plate appearances

In fantasy baseball, identifying players whose under-the-hood stats can predict a breakout for speed or power is one of the best ways to gain an advantage, and Crews’ current pace is the perfect example so far in the second half of 2026. Let’s take a look at what Crews has been doing lately.

Elite Barrel Rates

One of the biggest reasons Crews looks like a great fantasy power source lately is his elite barrel rate. Entering 2026, he has posted a barrel rate of 13% in 2025, according to Statcast, but was at just 9.1% for his career. In 2026, it’s up to 9.8%, and he has a barrel rate of 21.1% over the last two weeks, one of the top rates in the league. Barrel rate is often one of the strongest predictive measurements for present and future home runs because it measures how often a hitter combines an ideal launch angle with strong exit velocity. That power has served Crews well during this Nationals hot offensive stretch.

His average exit velocity is about 92.5 miles per hour in the last two weeks and over 90 mph overall, while his hard-hit rate has pushed above 43 percent, or more than five percentage points above 2025. Those are significant numbers for a 24-year-old hitter who is still adjusting to major league pitching this year. Crews already possesses the underlying power skills necessary for a major jump in power and contact, and he hasn’t even reached his prime yet.

A .262 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) this season has kept Crews’ batting average only at around .228 this year, but even if the batting average remains inconsistent (it’s been .333 the last two weeks), the power foundation is already strong enough to make him relevant in all mixed leagues.

Improved Swing Helps Power Potential

Crews’ improved power and swing this season is another major reason to believe in the recent breakout. Statcast tells us he has significantly improved his launch angle in 2026, with an average launch angle around 12.8 degrees (it was 8.5 degrees in 2025) and a squared-up contact rate nearing 38%. That is the exact type of batted-ball improvement fantasy managers want from an emerging hitter.

It has led to a very high whiff rate (14.6%) but only a decent strikeout rate (21.7 mph), but his bat speed is around 74 miles per hour, which is well above the league average this season. In many ways, Dylan Crews has most of the tools of a breakout hitter. He has high strikeouts but a good barrel rate, strong launch angle, and elite swing speed. He is seeing the ball better and is working through his struggles as he approaches his prime years.

Room For More the Rest of the Season

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Crews’ fantasy season is that his current production may not show what all he could do for the rest of 2026. He is just 24 years old with a full season of MLB playing time (172 games after Monday).  There is still growth happening, and some luck that could turn his way based on his numbers this year. That creates the possibility of an August and September surge once things begin to stabilize this year, just in time for the fantasy playoffs.

As shown by the BABIP (.262), there is also reason to believe his counting stats could improve. If the batting average goes up, the rest of his fantasy stats (home runs, runs, steals, RBIs) presumably go up as well. If he settles into a consistent middle-of-the-order role for Washington, the RBI and run totals could jump quickly. Crews has hit between third and fifth in the lineup in nine out of the last 10 games and has sat out just once since July 8. That’s incredibly valuable in fantasy baseball.

Also benefiting him are the superstar players hitting in front of him. Over the whole fantasy season, Wood and Abrams have both been top 10 fantasy assets. Now that Luis Garcia, Jr. is up and hitting second between Wood and Abrams, the table is often set up for run production for Crews.

Fantasy managers sometimes focus exclusively on batting average or other singular categories when evaluating breakout candidates, but players who can be on pace for 20-20 seasons with improving run production become extremely valuable across all formats. Crews definitely fits the bill in 2026.

For the remainder of 2026, Crews is exactly the type of player worth targeting in a trade or other move before the market fully catches up and realizes how well he is performing alongside this Nationals offense. The combination of a 44% hard-hit rate, improving launch angle, and contact ability that is getting better every day gives him the statistical profile of a player of a major fantasy baseball contributor over the rest of the 2026 season.