On Friday, the White Sox announced three roster moves, including the contract purchase of former Tennessee ace, Garrett Crochet, from their training facility. Crochet marks the first call-up from the 2020 MLB Draft class that featured several elite arms.
Crochet was drafted eleventh in the first round of the shortened 2020 MLB Draft and is rated the #96 overall prospect in professional baseball by MLBPipeline.com.
The 6' 6" hurler had 36 appearances in his time with Tennessee, including 132 IP with 149 K. Crochet's pitching arsenal features a lethal fastball/slider combination with a fastball touching 99 MPH.
Crochet appeared in one game from Tennessee during the 2020 college baseball season. He threw 3.1 innings with six strikeouts and zero runs in a March 7th outing against Wright State. Crochet missed time early in the season due to shoulder soreness.
When Crochet debuts, he will be just the 22nd player to skip the minor leagues and make his professional debut at the major league level since 1965. The minor league seasons were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Crochet joins the first-place Chicago White Sox, who have already clinched their first postseason appearance since 2008. White Sox GM Rick Hahn had high praises for Crochet, who will likely play a bullpen role in the 2020 season.
“He’s done an excellent job in Schaumburg,” said Hahn. "We want to spend the last 10 days of the season seeing if he potentially could help us out of the pen here, not only for the next week and a half but possibly in the postseason."
While the plan for the 2020 season is to pitch Crochet out of the bullpen, the long-term plan has Crochet as part of the rotation, according to Hahn. “We still view him long term as a starter. This is not his ultimate home in terms of the major-league pen, but we do think he has the potential to make us stronger over the next several weeks.”
UPDATE: Crochet made his MLB debut Friday night. He threw one perfect inning with two strikeouts. Crochet threw six pitches over 100 MPH and touched 101.5 MPH.
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