When players are taken early in the MLB draft, their strengths are often highlighted. Maybe it’s a plus fastball or prodigious power potential. Those tools dominate the early discussion about a prospect.
What often gets lost is the things those prospects have to improve on. For White Sox second-round pick Jared Kelley, he possesses a mid 90s fastball, good control and a good changeup, but scouts question his breaking ball. He knows it. First-round pick Garrett Crochet has a similar problem, but in his case it is the changeup that needs to improve.
Crochet could profile as a reliever. He is a 6-foot-6 left-hander with a fastball that can get into the upper 90s and a wipeout breaking ball. As the No. 11 pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, the White Sox expect him to be a starter. So does Crochet, but he knows the changeup needs to get better.
Crochet hadn’t truly started to develop his changeup until his sophomore year at Tennessee. He talked about that on a June 26 episode of the FutureSox Podcast.
“Before getting to college I had never thrown a changeup so it was a pretty big work in progress that I kind of delayed until sophomore year,” Crochet said. “At that point, there was still not that much feel for it. I still wasn’t very consistent with it. It’s definitely not what it is now. That’s kind of why I only went to the trials last year and didn’t play in the Cape (Cod League). I could live in Tennessee and continue to work on those little things and those little minor tweaks that I needed to do to my changeup because I knew that’s the pitch that would make me an elite pitcher.”
Crochet said he is open to whatever role the White Sox want to use him in. He thinks he can stick as a starter.
“I think that the development of my changeup is really what makes me see myself as that,” Crochet said. “Before my sophomore year, going back to when it was not that good of a pitch at all, it was kind of just a different offering to throw over the plate and keep the hitters off balance. But now it’s got good fade and good two-seam action to it that I think will help keep the right-handed bats off balance. Then I feel like when I pair that with my slider breaking into a righty I feel like it’s pretty untouchable.”
If that quote didn’t make it apparent, Crochet doesn’t lack confidence in his stuff. He said no one can hit him unless he makes a mistake. He also has lofty ambitions for his career.
“I’ve been grinding this entire fall to become the 11th pick overall, now I’m kind of grinding to make my MLB debut and then eventually be a Cy Young Award winner and hopefully a Hall of Famer,” Crochet said. “So the work’s definitely not done and I know that I still have a lot to put in and I’m looking forward to that.”
Beyond the changeup, the other knock on Crochet’s resume is his lack of track record. He was a late bloomer in high school. Crochet was originally set to play at a junior college, but eventually got an offer from Tennessee. He also was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 34th round in 2017.
Over three years at Tennessee he had a 4.64 ERA in 132 innings. He had typical growing pains as a freshman in the SEC, but he struggled with inconsistency as a sophomore. Crochet had a 4.02 ERA with 81 strikeouts and 22 walks in 65 innings. That’s not bad by any means, but doesn’t match the resume of a typical first-rounder. Injuries limited Crochet to just 65 innings.
His junior year got off to a late start with coach Tony Vitello playing it safe with him. He got one outing in before the season was ended. The season that could have been a breakout for Crochet never had a chance to get going. He still knew he had a chance to go high in the draft.
“Leading up to the draft I knew that I had a good chance to go at 11 where the White Sox were,” Crochet said. “So when that pick came up that was kind of the first time that I started to think ‘Hey, I’ve got a chance to go here.’ So pretty much throughout the night I was looking forward to that pick because I knew that’s when all the madness was about to begin. It went pretty much better than I could have ever imagined.”
Crochet explained that the White Sox were the first team to reach out to him once draft scouting became limited to Zoom meetings.
“Most Zoom calls consisted of about four or five guys, just player personnel on the call,” Crochet said. “They had about 10 or 11 when I was on the call and there was some front office guys on there so I knew that it was very important to them.
“That’s kind of when I though it could be a possibility.”
Crochet said Nicky Delmonico and Yasmani Grandal quickly reached out to welcome him to the White Sox.
“There’s not really much I know about the White Sox, especially being from southern Mississippi,” Crochet said before listing off some of the team’s young players. “I grew up a Braves fan so there’s definitely a lot that I’m excited to learn. Hopefully they’ll be able to teach it to me here soon.”
Photo credit: Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics
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