Last night, the White Sox selected Tennessee LHP Garrett Crochet with the 11th pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. His name had first started appearing in mock drafts just Tuesday with the White Sox, though many blogs – including ours – had seen that Crochet could very well be the pick in this spot.
Initial reactions were split, to put it nicely. So, what are the White Sox getting in Crochet, and what did the organization see in him that made him worth the risk at No. 11? Let’s break it down here.
Breakdown
I talked a lot about Crochet in my draft breakdown article here. I encourage you to read that for a deeper look at Crochet. Let’s just look at some of the important points again:
- Crochet easily has some of the best stuff in the draft. His fastball sits 97-100 mph with an average spin rate of above 2,500. Based on 2019 numbers, that would land him comfortably among the top 30 arms in baseball currently.
- Crochet pairs this fastball with a wipeout slider, creating uncomfortable at-bats for hitters on both sides of the plate. He has a changeup that hasn’t been seen too much, but Tennessee’s Pitching Coach Frank Anderson spoke highly of it in Joe Binder’s interview with him last night.
- While Crochet has top 10 stuff in this draft class, he only made 13 starts in college. According to reports, this was a combination of effectiveness in a bullpen role, coupled with coaching decisions. According to Baseball America, there is no reason Crochet can’t start long-term.
- Crochet missed a few weeks at the beginning of the COVID-shortened season with shoulder soreness. Reports have since come out that this was an extremely precautionary move on the part of the Tennessee coaching staff.
In short, the White Sox got a player with some of the best pure stuff in the draft, but a lack of track record that allowed him to fall to the White Sox. J.J. Cooper put it best here:
What the White Sox Saw
This section is pretty simple. The White Sox saw a 97-100 mph fastball with elite spin rate, which means that his fastball already plays better than that elite velocity would show. Think of how hard it is to hit a fastball at 100 mph that appears to be rising. They saw a wipeout slider that makes at-bats difficult for both left-handers and right-handers, and they saw a make up that had them convinced Crochet could be a starter long-term. Again, no one has said he can’t be a starter. There just hasn’t been as much of a track record as most would like.
The White Sox wouldn’t draft Crochet if they didn’t believe he could be a starter. Between Chris Sale, Carlos Rodon and – no matter how you feel about him – Carson Fulmer, the White Sox have a track record of getting recent first-round pitchers to the major leagues. Additionally, Zack Burdi isn’t too far behind. Just getting players to the majors is a feat in itself – the draft is an absolute crapshoot, no matter how “safe” anyone thinks a pick is.
Everyone asked the White Sox to take a risk with this pick and think outside the box. They did exactly that. People became upset because it wasn’t the risk they wanted the club to take – which we will get into now.
Reactions from Twitter are Overblown and Unfair
Well, a lot of White Sox Twitter was unhappy initially with this pick. I think the consensus was that most fans wanted one of the following three: Ed Howard (16th to the Cubs), Mick Abel (15th to the Phillies), or Tyler Soderstrom (26th to the A’s). The overarching theme is clear: take a prep player with a ton of upside, even if it means assuming some additional risk.
Instead, the White Sox took a college player with a ton of upside, even if it meant assuming some additional risk.
See the difference? It’s very slight – which you wouldn’t guess from Twitter.
I wrote about prep vs. college in my breakdown a couple days ago, so read that if you want to catch up on my thoughts on the types of risk assumed. However, almost immediately, Crochet was written off as a sure-fire reliever with an injury history, neither of which paint the full picture of Crochet as a pitcher, as we’ve talked about above. It didn’t help that James Fegan put this tweet out, which was of course received very well by Sox fans:
So, let’s break it all down here. The White Sox are no doubt assuming some risk with a guy like Crochet. He has the pure stuff to pitch in the majors today, but doesn’t have the track record most people would like to see. I understand the concerns fans have about this track record, but at the end of the day, it is up to the White Sox to develop Crochet into that starter he has the ability to become. Just because a player is a starter in college doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to be a starter in the majors – there’s a long history of relievers who were once starters. His injury “issues” are overblown, and Crochet was posting videos of himself throwing 100 mph just two weeks ago. The type of soreness is also important: it was shoulder soreness, not elbow soreness. Shoulder soreness is almost routine at the beginning of the season, and was clearly a precautionary move for Tennessee. Don’t let your opposition to this pick be, “he was shut down due to shoulder soreness for a couple weeks to begin the season.”
As for the comment from Mike Shirley: I tweeted about it last night (here it is again):
The MLB Draft is nothing like the NFL Draft or NBA Draft. If a team is able to successfully develop a player they drafted into a quality talent that is productive at the major league level, they are in the minority, not the majority. Scouts in the MLB Draft have no doubt the hardest job among any of the major professional sports – baseball is the hardest sport to draft for. The White Sox should consider it a success if Garrett Crochet makes it to the major leagues. This is not setting the bar low or “moving the goalposts,” this is an honest evaluation of just how damn hard playing baseball is and being a scout is. If you think every player the Sox draft will be an Ace, All-Star, and multiple MVP candidate, you’re going to have experience a lot of anger and frustration for absolutely no good reason.
Let’s talk about Crochet’s floor though – his ceiling is a high-quality major league starter, and that’s all you can ask for at #11. Aces don’t grow on trees. Think back to the 2016 playoffs. What is the most memorable part of that, from an evaluation standpoint? No, it’s not that the Cubs won the World Series – it’s how crucial bullpens were to that entire postseason. This is not uncommon in an era where starters are going to pitch fewer are fewer innings. Andrew Miller of the Cleveland Indians at that time was among the most valuable players to the Indians throughout all of 2016. He was a high leverage reliever.
We aren’t in 2005 anymore. This is the era of the reliever, and no playoff team is going to have four consecutive complete games in the playoffs ever again. If, at his floor, Garrett Crochet becomes an Andrew Miller-type reliever with the ability to start games once and awhile, the White Sox will have one of the most valuable and flexible arms in baseball. Having a pitcher that can confidently pitch anywhere in innings 1-9 is an asset any team would die to have. So, saying someone’s “floor” is a high-leverage relief arm isn’t a bad thing, and shouldn’t be seen as one. Crochet has the stuff to get hitters at the major league level out now. That’s value that other players can’t necessarily provide.
Remember, we all want the Sox to be competitive now and win division titles now. Crochet has the ability to provide depth to a team that desperately needs it. Think of what happens when there’s an injury to someone at the major league level. Remember who the next arm up from AAA would currently be, and then decide if you think the Sox could use some depth to sustain success over the course of a full season.
None of those prep players help the White Sox in the near term. I promise there will be plenty of prep picks to stock up the farm again next year too.
As for now, I’m all in on this pick. His pure stuff was absolutely impossible to pass up, given how the board fell.
Garrett Crochet is the kind of high upside pick that could end up being one of the steals of the draft in time to come. He is clearly versatile enough that he can serve in any role the White Sox could ask him to fill. We’ve all made our assumptions here about what type of player Crochet will be – some positive, some negative. That’s part of being a fan.
At the same time, let’s try and be fair to this kid. How about we let him pitch first before we start deciding who he’s going to be?
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