With their first round draft pick tonight, the Chicago White Sox selected a big, lanky, 6-6 left handed pitcher. His name, Garrett Crochet, and the Tennessee Volunteers hurler immediately drew comparisons to Chris Sale.
The Sox drafted Crochet 11th overall, Sale 13th overall in 2010. Both are power pitchers who accumulate a lot of strikeouts, and put up eye-popping strike outs per innings pitched numbers. The numbers pop out at you like the winnings you can put up playing at scr888, so check that out. Crochet has reportedly hit 100 mph while throwing in quarantine, but he’s been clocked in upper 90s before.
Some say he has the best overall stuff of any pitching prospect in this class, as he’s primarily a fastball pitcher, with a good slider. He’s got much more room to grow as he’s only just scratching the surface now.
“We are very excited to bring Garrett into the organization,” said Mike Shirley, White Sox director of amateur scouting.
“We are talking about an elite left-handed pitcher, who we think will be a starter, with a three-pitch mix. The intangibles that he brings in terms of toughness and athleticism is something we really gravitated towards, and we were very excited to get him at the 11th pick.
“It’s a great situation for both Garrett and the Chicago White Sox, and we look forward to many great years ahead with this young man.”
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Crochet doesn’t sees any reason to have earned the Sale comps at this point, but he did say he looks to him in terms of developing his slider.
“I see the similarities, and actually when I was developing my slider, I tried to shape in the same way that his is,” he said on a Zoom call with the media.
Crochet is hoping to further develop a change-up, and improve his curveball as well. He does fast track to the majors, maybe first as a bullpen arm. Then he could go back down to work on his repertoire, and get up to the show as a starter.
He paints the corners well, and presents a lot of upside for the 16th pick, but his ERA and home runs allowed numbers are not good. He needs to prove his durability, and work on his problems allowing the long ball.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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