Meghan Montemurro

The News Journal

PHILADELPHIA – By any measure, Phillies top prospect J.P. Crawford is not off to a good start at Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Through the first two weeks of the IronPigs' season, Crawford is batting .089 (4 for 45) with one extra-base hit, seven walks, 14 strikeouts and a .345 OPS in 13 games. His struggles continued in Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader, featuring an 0 for 4 performance with two fielding errors at shortstop.

The Phillies' No. 1-ranked prospect, and one of the most-highly rated prospects in all of Minor League Baseball, entered 2017 hoping to improve on a mediocre first stint at Triple-A last year.

So far that hasn't happened. But that's just part of inherent unpredictability when it comes to prospects. And for all of the hullabaloo that surrounds top minor-league players any time they endure a prolonged slump, patience is a must – for the player, team and fans.

It's also important to remember that progress doesn't always mean there's constant, linear improvement. Sometimes the failures can provide the greatest lessons for a player.

One person who isn't too concerned by Crawford's early-season woes is Phillies general manager Matt Klentak.

"We have some players that are off to great starts, and others like J.P. that are struggling," Klentak said Saturday. "But I think we want to give it a little time before we put too much stock in an early season slump."

As a reminder, Crawford, the seventh overall pick in the 2013 draft, only turned 22 years old in January. He's still incredibly young. There are only five players currently in Major League Baseball who are younger than Crawford.

The Texas Rangers' budding star Nomar Mazara is the most notable of that group. Two of them are on the rebuilding San Diego Padres – Luis Torrens and Allen Cordoba, both of whom are Rule 5 picks – another, Antonio Senzatela, pitches for the Colorado Rockies, while Raul Mondesi is in his second season with the Kansas City Royals.

So of everything to worry about with the Phillies, Crawford's performance so early in the season shouldn't raise any red flags quite yet.

A tough two weeks of games look a lot worse in April than in, say, July or August, because the lack of total at-bats means season batting average, on-base percentage and OPS are affected greatly by the small sample size.

"I think at this stage of the game we have to look [and realize] you’re always going to have players that are going through ups and always going to have players going through downs," Klentak said. "That’s true of this team at the major league level, and it’s true in our minor leagues."

If Crawford looks lost at the plate and his problems at the plate carry into June, well, then it might be time to wonder what's going on. For now, his slow start seems to be a carry over from spring training, when he never quite got on track while in big-league camp with the Phillies.

Any fans worried about Crawford should take a deep breath and adopt a big-picture approach to Crawford's season before overreacting to two weeks worth of Triple-A games.

Contact Meghan Montemurro at mmontemurro@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @M_Montemurro.