Wil Crowe had the perfect Christmas present for his parents. That was until Christmas Eve.
After making his Major League debut that August, he gave his parents replicas of his Nationals jersey. On Dec. 24, he had to call his dad, Tim, to tell him he could never wear it in public.
He had just been traded to the Pirates.
“That’s ok,” Crowe’s dad told him. “You can get me a Pirates one in spring training.”
Crowe went to the Pirates, along with 19-year-old right-handed pitcher Eddy Yean, in the Christmas Eve deal that sent Josh Bell to the Nationals.
It really didn’t sink in that he had been traded until he woke up Christmas morning. After it did, the more he thought about it, the more excited he became.
“It’s like a fresh breath of air, from where I was to where I am going,” Crowe was telling me during a phone call Monday afternoon. “I think I have a really good opportunity in front of me. I’m excited to be a Pirate. I'm ready to get to work. It’s just given me an extra bit of motivation, just to be ready.”
Crowe, 26, was ranked as the Nationals’ third best prospect by MLB Pipeline at the time of the trade, but has fallen to 17th in the Pirates’ farm system.
Despite the lower ranking, he will go into spring training next year with a chance to earn a spot in the rotation. With Joe Musgrove’s trade market starting to heat up, it seems very likely there will be at least one spot up for grabs.
“He’s certainly at a point in his career where he can be a factor in 2021 and have an opportunity to earn more opportunity over time,” Ben Cherington said during a Zoom call during the day of the trade. “He’s got the pitches and the know-how and the physical characteristics and the history that suggests he can be a starting pitcher in the major leagues, and we still see some improvement opportunities for him, and looking forward to getting him in our system and working with him.”
Crowe made three starts with the Nationals last year, but none of them went well, allowing 11 earned runs over 8 1/3 innings.
Reflecting on those outings this winter, Crowe said he wasn’t pitching like himself. He wasn’t attacking, and batters were taking advantage of his timidness. It’s one thing if a hitter beats him. It’s another when he feels he beat himself.
“I was trying to do too much,” Crowe said. “I was trying to be perfect, trying to be too fine, and it was making me not compete in the zone, and that’s not me.”
Some of that pressure came from the environment he was in. While the Nationals finished last in the National League East, they were still the defending champions. The top of their rotation – Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin – is one of the best big threes in the game, but it also means there isn’t much room for a rookie like him to break through.
That’s the blessing and curse of coming through Washington’s system. During spring training, Crowe worked with Strasburg to help fix the load part of his windup while in the stretch. Being around those veterans, he saw how they went about their routines, the work they put in between starts, how they did video and analytics work. Some of it was new to him, and he had some great pitchers to learn from.
But it also meant that one or two bad outings could cost you a job. So Crowe pressed, to terrible results.
“You go out there and you’re trying to be perfect all the time, trying to do things that may not be in your strong suits,” Crowe said. “… I was getting into some bad habits.”
Crowe nibbled instead of attacking the zone. When he does attack, he has five different pitches to choose from: Two fastballs – a four- and two-seamer that sit in the low 90s with good spin – a curveball, a slider and a changeup.
The curve gets good vertical break with 1-to-7 movement, though it can occasionally drop 12-6:
The slider plays off how the curveball looks out of the hand, breaking more horizontally but with some drop.
Crowe doesn’t have a preference between the two, though he has been throwing the curveball longer, starting in high school compared to picking up the slider in college.
“Over the last couple years, I’ve gotten more comfortable throwing both of them in the zone and competing with them,” Crowe said. “I’m really comfortable throwing all five of my pitches. I wouldn’t say one is more comfortable than the next.”
If they both are working, Crowe could cement his rotation slot with the Pirates.
During the hectic Christmas Eve, Cherington called Crowe to welcome him to the Pirates. Once the holiday passed, he started to talk to other people within the organization, with the first of those calls being with Derek Shelton.
It was “short and sweet,” and just what he wanted to hear.
“[He said] the future of the Pirates is looking good. That they’re excited about this next step they’re taking, and that he’s excited that I’m going to be a part of it.”
