Arm & Hammer: Dylan Crews And Paul Skenes Are Poised To Make History
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Jay Johnson’s first impression of both Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes was strikingly similar to how 28 big league teams will feel on draft day: admiration from afar with little to no chance of seeing them play for his team.
Back when he was the head coach for Arizona, Johnson distinctly remembers how struck he was by the talent of both players.
For Crews, the famous prep outfield prospect who was a mainstay with USA Baseball’s national teams and consistently regarded as one of the most talented players in his class, it was during the 15U USA Baseball roster trials.
“When I saw him I was like, ‘Man, that is a real player,’ ” Johnson said. “You could see the talent, but he was so far advanced (in terms of) actually knowing how to play the game (compared) to the normal 15-year-old. It was like Nick Madrigal’s instincts and how he moved—but with more explosive and athletic talent, if you will.”
Johnson would have loved to recruit Crews to Arizona, but Crews announced his commitment to Paul Mainieri’s Louisiana State program around the time of the 15U trials.
Skenes wasn’t as highly regarded as Crews as a high schooler, but Johnson still remembers being blown away with his talent—but it was his hitting ability that caught his eye at the time.
“I remember seeing him hit in high school on the circuit—Area Codes or something like that—and then he was committed to Air Force and I was like, ‘Gosh, this has to be one of the best players Air Force has ever signed.’ ”
Both Crews and Skenes were members of the 2020 high school class, which meant their senior spring seasons were cut dramatically short and both had to contend with a five-round draft.
Skenes at the time was unranked and committed to Air Force, and even with a full spring seemed unlikely to sign out of high school. Crews was a bit different. He had struggled on the 2019 summer showcase circuit but still possessed some of the best pure bat speed in the class. He ranked as the No. 54 prospect overall and could have potentially moved back up draft boards with a strong senior season at Lake Mary (Fla.) High.
Both players would make it to campus.
Crews made headlines when he removed himself from the draft entirely and honored his commitment to LSU. Skenes went undrafted out of El Toro High in Lake Forest, Calif., in the shortest draft in history and made it to campus at Air Force.
“I remember when (Crews) announced he was pulling his name out of the draft. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing for LSU. That guy is going to tear up college baseball,’ ” Johnson said.
“And then with Paul in 2021 . . . (Air Force) came down to play us at our place in a tournament with Wichita State, and (coach Mike Kazlausky) and I were just standing outside my office talking, and he goes, ‘Hey I got this freshman who’s really good. He can’t stay here for three years because he’s going to be a first-round pick.’ ”
Johnson knew exactly the freshman he was talking about and told Kazlausky to please let him know if Skenes ever decided to transfer. He would love the opportunity to coach him at Arizona.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, Johnson made a transfer of his own. The LSU coaching job opened after Mainieri retired following the 2021 season. After leading Arizona to a Pacific-12 Conference championship and College World Series appearance in 2021, Johnson moved from Tucson to Baton Rouge and became the 26th head coach in Tigers history.
Johnson got a chance to coach Crews immediately. A year later, after LSU lost in the 2022 Hattiesburg Regional in Mississippi, Johnson started a two-month process of recruiting Skenes, who entered the transfer portal after the 2022 season.
“The only good thing that came out of Covid was the five-round draft,” said Johnson, who found success at Arizona in part by getting high-profile 2020 high school hitters Jacob Berry and Daniel Susac to campus. “Between Daniel Susac, Jacob Berry, Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews—those are four pretty good players I’ve had the opportunity to coach.”
Susac, who remained at Arizona, and Berry, who followed Johnson to LSU, both became first-round picks as draft-eligible sophomores in 2022. Crews and Skenes will do the same this year.
The two are currently ranked as the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the class. They have a real chance to make history as the first teammates ever to be drafted with the first two picks.
The one question: which player are the Pirates going to choose with the No. 1 overall pick?
“He’s everything you (want) in a five-tool player . . . This year is honestly historic what he’s doing . . . And it’s not just like he’s performing. He has the tools to back it up. Wherever he goes, it’s 1 or 2 . . . It’d be hard to pass on a guy with that kind of talent and ability. He was arguably the No. 1 player coming in and he hasn’t made you change your mind on it.”
—Anonymous scout on Dylan Crews
If there were ever questions about Crews’ hitting ability in high school, there are none now.
Since the first day he set foot on campus, he’s been one of the best players in college baseball. He set LSU’s freshman home run record in 2021 with 18 and was the lone underclassman to make the 2022 preseason All-America first team. He followed up his 2021 campaign by hitting 22 home runs and slashing .349/.463/.691 as a sophomore, all while moving from right field to center, making the Southeastern Conference all-defensive team and being a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award.
The pressure of his draft year did not impact Crews in the least. Throughout much of the 2023 season, Crews led all Division I hitters in batting and flirted with a .500 average weeks into SEC play. He reached base safely in each game of the regular season and through 58 games had hit .420/.567/.710 with 15 home runs and career bests with a 20.9% walk rate and 13.7% strikeout rate.
It’s not just surface-level production. Crews has produced some of the loudest exit velocity data in the country, with an average exit velocity of 95-96 mph and a 90th percentile EV at 109-110. He’s an elite hitter who has paired standout physical tools with an approach that is among the best in the nation.
“Dylan is the best college hitter position player I’ve ever seen,” Johnson said. “Everybody talks about the five tools. Those easily check. You guys can see and rank all of those things. He has all of them. I think just in terms of consistent performance at the highest level of college baseball—that’s where he stands out.
“It has shown up literally in just about every game since I have been here in the last two years, at the most important times, against the best competition. And so it’s not a project player. It’s a player who has all of the necessary ingredients but they show up on game day. Every single day.
“I don’t know if you can even calculate WAR for college baseball, but his would probably be one of the highest in history.”
Scouts have said Crews has five above-average to plus tools across the board, which puts him solidly into the rare, and potentially overused, five-tool player category. He has turned in plus run times and projects to have above-average speed even as he ages.
Crews has proven to be an above-average defender in center field who takes advanced routes to the ball and has an excellent first step. His easy plus arm would be an asset at any outfield position.
He showcases the same double-plus bat speed that he had in high school and has near 70-grade raw power in batting practice. Crews has always flashed those loud tools, but the biggest improvement in his game since he was a tooled-up but overly aggressive swinger in high school is his plate approach.
“Just the plate discipline part of it is really impressive,” said one scout. “Obviously, when he hits the ball it just takes off. It’s a different sound off the bat. But just his at-bats and the at-bat quality were really good. I saw him in high school and there was some chase against secondary stuff off the plate.
“Now he’s not chasing. He’s got pretty good plate discipline. He’s got a pretty good idea of what he’s doing and he doesn’t miss pitches. Plus he can let the ball travel deep and he’s got power the other way. He did everything you can ask when I saw him. They didn’t have an answer for him. They couldn’t get him out.”
The ability to confidently let the ball travel while trusting his hands and still hitting for impact to the opposite field is the real separator for Crews, and what has led to his supreme consistency in the SEC.
“It’s a combination of that bat speed and his tremendous vision,” Johnson said. “He has this ability to make later decisions than any player I’ve ever seen, which leads him to laying off borderline pitches, or pitcher’s pitches or balls, and allows him to make a late decision on a mistake. And he ends up hitting those balls out to right field like nobody I have ever seen.
“It is incredibly, incredibly impressive. I see it as a combination of the right approach, that bat speed and vision. To put all those things together, he doesn’t swing at balls and he crushes mistakes.”
Johnson has called Crews the best recovery hitter he’s ever seen. There have been instances when he looks beat on a pitch, and the average college hitter likely would be, but he’s able to flash his hands through the zone, make a late decision and hammer the ball over the opposite-field fence.
In two-strike counts, Crews is able to widen his stance, almost remove his stride entirely and still have the power to drive the ball with authority.
“I explain him as the perfectly built baseball player,” Johnson said. “I mean he’s got an unbelievably strong lower half, unbelievably strong core, he moves correctly and it allows him to be into the ground and incredibly balanced with two strikes.
“So you have that elite vision. You have that elite bat speed and now you have this approach where he is balanced and can react to fastballs when people try to sneak it by him. He spits on the breaking ball out of the zone. He spoils the borderline pitch and he sends the mistake back up to the middle of the field for an extra-base hit, even in a two-strike approach.”
“He’s definitely the best college pitcher I’ve seen this year . . . He’s probably the best guy since (Stephen) Strasburg . . . Just dominating. From last summer to where he is now, he’s just made a huge step up. Stuff, pitchability, strikes, obviously throwing harder. But the slider has gotten to be a true wipeout pitch. He stacks up right with Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer . . . He’s going to be a quick mover to the big leagues. I’d say he’ll take the same route that Cole and Bauer took. I wouldn’t be shocked if he was in a rotation by this time next year.”
—Anonymous scout on Paul Skenes
If you’re going to transfer and focus on pitching, you could do a lot worse than moving to a team that employs Wes Johnson as its pitching coach.
The former Twins pitching coach created shockwaves when he left the big leagues in the middle of the 2022 season to join Johnson’s stockpile of talent in Baton Rouge. Skenes has been the most obvious beneficiary of his tutelage.
The two immediately got to work during the fall, with a specific focus on Skenes’ slider. It didn’t take long before loud reports trickled back from scouts who had seen the 6-foot-6 righthander in his new purple-and-gold digs.
“Apparently, he has been godly this fall,” one scout said at the time of Skenes, a three-time, first-team All-American who spent the first two of those seasons as a two-way player. “(He threw) 95-100 (mph) on the fastball with like 70-grade movement. And hitting a bunch of (expletive) home runs, too.”
It was a sign of things to come, though Skenes would eventually drop his batting gloves and focus exclusively on pitching for the Tigers. There were discussions of Skenes maintaining his two-way status for LSU as late as January. He was more than capable of doing both at an elite level with Air Force, pitching to a 2.72 ERA over 112 innings while hitting .367/.453/.669 with 24 home runs in 100 games.
As Skenes showed improvement on the mound in the offseason, Johnson realized just how special a pitcher he had on his hands. Having one of the most talented lineups in the country likely didn’t hurt the decision to have Skenes stop hitting.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute. This guy is going to get $8 million (as a signing bonus),’ ” Johnson said. “It kind of became like, ‘OK we can do it without him hitting. We can’t do it without him pitching.’ And if somebody runs a fastball up and in and breaks his right hand and one of his fingers, that’s not good for Paul.”
Skenes’ jump in stuff was immediate.
After sitting 93-94 mph and touching 99 in 2022 with Air Force, Skenes came out sitting in the upper 90s and holding that velocity deep into starts. Through 14 games this season Skenes averaged 98 mph and touched 103 in the SEC Tournament.
His slider has added a tick of velocity as well, but the improved shape of the pitch is most notable. Previously a mid-80s, short-breaking pitch with downward tilt, Skenes and Johnson have morphed the slider into more of a sweeper—the en vogue pitch type for MLB analysts.
The pitch now has more than 11 inches of horizontal movement and has generated a miss rate of 66%. Now armed with two 70-grade pitches, Skenes has hardly needed to use a firm, upper-80s changeup that could be a third above-average offering.
Skenes’ stuff has jumped for a number of reasons. Not hitting has allowed his body to recover more efficiently in between starts. He no longer has the off-the-field demands that are required at a military academy. These factors have helped translate into more efficient movement patterns, better velocity and better command.
He has been the single most dominant pitcher in the country, rapidly surpassing Tennessee righthander Chase Dollander, who entered the year as the consensus top pitcher in the class, by consistently shutting down opposing lineups in one of the most hitter-friendly environments ever seen in college baseball.
Heading into regional play, Skenes led the nation with 167 strikeouts—46 more than the No. 2 player in the country—while posting a 1.89 ERA, a 48.1% strikeout rate and eye-popping 43.2 K-BB%.
“He’s a once-in-every-10-years kind of guy,” one scout said.
“I saw Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and those guys (in college),” another scout said. “Skenes is better than them. He is durable, he has better velo. The breaking ball is going to be plus. And those guys are Cy Young winners and have kept it going into their 40s.
“I think Skenes is a longtime big leaguer with Cy Young seasons and frontline ace upside, and if they let him hit he would be a first-round bat, too.”
Johnson has seen his fair share of talented arms as well. And for him, Skenes stacks up with all of them.
“The only three guys I would come up with as maybe even close are Stephen Strasburg, David Price and Tim Lincecum. As far as being dominant at this level. As far as the performance, it’s a head-scratcher every week.
“What I mean by that is: Man, can he keep doing this at this level? And he does. And he gets better as we are going along here. The tools are insane, the person, the maturity, the preparation is like nothing I’ve ever seen at this level. He prepares like he is an 18-year major league veteran who has won like six Cy Youngs.”
“I don’t think people get too cute up top this year . . . The top guys are really good.”
—Anonymous scout on the top of the 2023 draft.
In some ways, it’s never an easy task to pick at the top of the draft. This year’s talent makes the job a bit less stressful.
The industry has sung the praises of the elite talent in the 2023 draft all spring, and in a group that includes Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford and high school outfielders Walker Jenkins and Max Clark, the LSU duo of Crews and Skenes leads the way.
After winning the first-ever draft lottery late in 2022, the Pirates hold the keys to the draft, with their second No. 1 selection in the last three years. When the team was last in this position, in 2021, it had to sort through a class that lacked a clear-cut, consensus top player.
Ultimately, they chose to take Louisville catcher Henry Davis, then ranked the No. 4 player in a class that had five legitimate options in the top tier. Pittsburgh signed Davis for a $6.5 million bonus that was nearly $2 million under slot and then applied the bonus pool savings to sign high-upside high school players to over-slot deals. That list includes righthander Bubba Chandler, lefthander Anthony Solometo and athletic outfielder Lonnie White Jr.
The Pirates remain in a position where there’s still no obvious player to take with the first pick, but it’s because there are multiple elite players at the top of the class, instead of none.
The Pirates haven’t reached the postseason since 2015, and the organization has been rebuilding for several years. Its deep prospect pool has come from picking among the top 10 picks for three—and now four—consecutive drafts. Shortstop Oneil Cruz has offered a glimpse of the next wave, and the 2023 team was surprisingly competitive through the first third of the regular season.
Now, with Crews and Skenes sitting atop the draft board, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington and scouting director Joe Dellicarri could be well positioned to add an Adley Rutschman– or Stephen Strasburg-caliber catalyst to help push the team to the next level.
“I think they can’t go wrong,” Johnson said. “(As Arizona coach,) I got a chance to compete against Adley Rutschman, who is amazing. And Spencer Torkelson, who is amazing.
“And I just think Dylan brings more to the table than any college position player I’ve ever seen. And Paul, in my opinion, is the most dominant college pitcher I’ve ever seen who is really close to making a major league contribution.
“And the type of people that both of them are, you can’t go wrong. I think the Pirates and the Nationals are both smiling right now, because they are both going to get a true 1-1 player.
“And they’re going to get a 1-1 person in both of them.”
Highest Drafted College Teammates
No college teammates have ever been drafted with the first two picks in a draft. That could change this year.
The Louisiana State duo of outfielder Dylan Crews and righthander Paul Skenes rank as the top two prospects in this draft class. But this being baseball, they are not locks to be drafted by the Pirates and Nationals with the top two picks.
Here we examine nine duos—and one trio—of college teammates with the highest draft position.
Players marked with an asterisk were the Baseball America College Player of the Year that season.
Baseball-Reference WAR totals are rounded to the nearest integer.
—Matt Eddy
1978 Arizona State
—No. 1 Bob Horner, 3B, Braves (22 WAR)
—No. 3 Hubie Brooks, SS, Mets (13 WAR)
Horner and Brooks guided the Sun Devils to the 1977 CWS title and a runner-up finish a year later. Horner set NCAA home run records and smashed 23 more for Atlanta to win NL Rookie of the Year in 1978, his draft year. Brooks found success in Montreal after the Mets traded him to the Expos as part of the December 1984 deal for Gary Carter.
2011 UCLA
—No. 1 Gerrit Cole, RHP, Pirates (36 WAR)
—No. 3 Trevor Bauer*, RHP, D-backs (21 WAR)
Cole and Bauer pitched the Bruins to the CWS finals in 2010, and the latter was College Player of the Year in 2011. Cole is the first and only $300 million pitcher in history and trails only Jacob deGrom for WAR among pitchers who debuted after 2010. The controversial Bauer now pitches in Japan after the Dodgers dumped him in January.
1996 Clemson
—No. 1 Kris Benson*, RHP, Pirates (13 WAR)
—No. 4 Billy Koch, RHP, Blue Jays (5 WAR)
Benson and Koch appear on the infamous 1996 Baseball America cover that revealed that fellow Team USA pitcher R.A. Dickey was born without a UCL in his elbow. The Clemson duo pitched the Tigers to the CWS in 1995 and ’96 then went on to useful MLB careers. Benson had a 100 ERA+ in 200 starts; Koch notched 163 saves in six seasons.
1976 Arizona State
—No. 1 Floyd Bannister, LHP, Astros (26 WAR)
—No. 6 Ken Landreaux, OF, Angels (10 WAR)
The Sun Devils were one of the dominant programs of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, winning the CWS five times. No program had more first-round picks than ASU in the first 25 years of draft history. Both Bannister and Landreaux were decorated collegians who had lengthy MLB careers of league-average production. Each made one all-star team.
2004 Rice
—No. 3 Philip Humber, RHP, Mets (1 WAR)
—No. 4 Jeff Niemann, RHP, Rays (4 WAR)
—No. 8 Wade Townsend, RHP, Orioles (DNP)
Rice rode its three-headed rotation to a CWS title in 2003. None of Humber, Niemann or Townsend replicated that success in MLB, though Humber threw a perfect game in 2012. Townsend went back into the 2005 draft but never reached MLB, finding more success as a professional poker player.
2007 Vanderbilt
—No. 1 David Price*, LHP, Rays (40 WAR)
—No. 8 Casey Weathers, RHP, Rockies (DNP)
Price went wire-to-wire as the top draft prospect in 2007, and then delivered the goods in MLB, winning a World Series, a Cy Young Award and making five all-star teams. Weathers marked the beginning of the end for teams drafting college closers in the first round. He had Tommy John surgery in 2008 and never advanced past Double-A.
2015 Vanderbilt
—No. 1 Dansby Swanson, SS, D-backs (17 WAR)
—No. 8 Carson Fulmer, RHP, White Sox (–1 WAR)
Swanson helped Vanderbilt reach the CWS finals for the first two times in program history in 2014 and 2015, winning it all the first year. The D-backs abruptly traded Swanson six months after drafting him, and he helped the Braves win the 2021 World Series. Fulmer stood out in a bad class for college pitching and failed to gain a foothold in MLB.
1999 Southern California
—No. 3 Eric Munson, C, Tigers (–1 WAR)
—No. 9 Barry Zito, LHP, Athletics (32 WAR)
Munson offered huge lefthanded power at catcher, but a back injury and a move to first base short-circuited his pro career. Zito pitched one season for USC and quickly looked like a draft steal when he brought his famous curveball to Oakland in 2000, joining Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder at the front of the Athletics’ rotation.
2021 Vanderbilt
—No. 2 Jack Leiter, RHP, Rangers (Double-A)
—No. 10 Kumar Rocker*, RHP, Mets (High-A IL)
Rocker was instrumental to the Commodores’ 2019 title, then he teamed with Leiter to pitch Vanderbilt to the CWS finals in 2021. Two years later, Leiter appears to be turning a corner at Double-A, while Rocker had Tommy John surgery in May—now with the Rangers after he didn’t sign with the Mets in 2021 and re-entered the 2022 draft.
2017 Virginia
—No. 7 Pavin Smith, 1B, D-backs (0 WAR)
—No. 8 Adam Haseley, OF, Phillies (1 WAR)
Smith and Haseley were freshmen on Virginia’s 2015 College World Series-winning team. Both are lefthanded hitters who had intriguing hit tools in college but lacked impact power and speed. To date, both have underwhelmed in MLB as part-time players, Haseley providing some defensive value and Smith some offensive utility.
