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Garrett Crochet

Padres Showing Strong Interest In Garrett Crochet

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The Padres are showing strong interest in left-hander Garrett Crochet of the White Sox, per a report from Dennis Lin and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The report cautions that no deal is imminent but it also states that the Friars have been the most aggressive club in pursuing Crochet.

Significant trades are fairly rare at this time of the year, with the trade deadline still almost two months away. However, there are reasons why it’s not so far-fetched with these two clubs. The two sides already lined up on a notable deal at an odd time not too long ago, when the Sox sent Dylan Cease to the Padres in the middle of March, just as the season was about to begin. Each club has also made a noteworthy trade since that time, with the Sox sending Robbie Grossman to the Rangers in early May and the Padres acquiring Luis Arráez from the Marlins around the same time.

For the Sox, they have been aggressively rebuilding for about a year now, selling off just about any player nearing free agency. For the Padres, it’s a part of their general modus operandi, as president of baseball operations A.J. Preller seems to have a strong will to explore all possible avenues for upgrading the club even if those overtures fall outside of standard operating procedure.

But there are also reasons why a deal may not get done. Crochet is in a very unique situation, which makes him less straightforward than other players the Sox have traded. He is still quite young, only 24 years old, turning 25 later this month. He is still under club control for two more years after this one and is only making $800K this year. That’s a reflection of both his quick ascent to the majors and his injury troubles, as he was in the big leagues by his age-21 season but has missed significant time and hasn’t been able to push his salary up.

The Sox put Crochet in the bullpen when they first called him up, an understandable move at the time given his youth and lack of experience. But he then required Tommy John surgery in April of 2022, which prevented him from pitching at all in 2022 and limited him to just 13 appearances last year.

His time spent on the injured list allowed him to reach arbitration in the most recent offseason, but the lengthy absence meant that he barely pushed his salary above the $740K league minimum. Despite a fairly limited innings tally, the Sox decided to stretch him out this year and the results have been excellent. Crochet has thrown 69 2/3 innings over his 13 starts this year, allowing 3.49 earned runs per nine innings. He has struck out 33.7% of batters faced, limited walks to a 5.4% clip and also gotten grounders on 45.2% of balls in play.

For the Sox, they suddenly seem to have an ace on their hands, one who is still young and cheap and doesn’t have a ton on mileage on his arm. But on the other hand, his early promotion and Tommy John layoff means that he’s getting close-ish to free agency. Given the state of the Sox, it’s hard to imagine them returning to contention in the time frame of his club control, as their current record of 15-45 is easily the worst in the league.

Signing Crochet to an extension would be one way to avoid the trade path, but the lefty would have to agree to that. Thanks to his early call-up, he’s currently slated to reach free agency shortly after his 27th birthday, a rarely young age that could leave him well positioned to cash in a couple of years from now. The most recent offseason was rough for a lot of players, as many of them had to settle for deals well below expectations. But two players who blew past predictions were Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jung Hoo Lee, both of whom were 25 years old.

If that leaves the Sox open to a trade, the time to do it is now when Crochet’s value is highest. By the offseason, they will only be able to market two postseason runs instead of three, while Crochet’s salary will also increase via arbitration.

But whether the Padres can pull off such a trade is another question, something that Lin and Rosenthal highlight in their report. The Friars have traded away many prospects in recent years, including in the aforementioned deals for Cease and Arráez, as well as for Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Sean Manaea and others. Per today’s report, the Sox would probably need to bring back a significant position player in any Crochet deal. The report mentions prospects Ethan Salas and Leodalis De Vries as possibilities but adds that the Padres are reluctant to part with either of those two in a Crochet deal.

Whether a deal can be done remains to be seen, but it’s understandable why the Padres are sniffing around for starting pitching. They recently put Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish on the injured list, subtracting two of their most established starters. They still have Cease, but the rotation gets flimsy after that. Michael King was mostly a reliever until about a year ago and is still in the process of cementing himself as a big league starter. Matt Waldron and Randy Vásquez each have less than 105 major league innings pitched in their respective careers while Adam Mazur is going to be called up to make his major league debut this week.

Despite the rotation struggles, the club is currently 32-31 and holding onto a Wild Card spot. Proactively acquiring Crochet or any starting pitcher now, as opposed to waiting until the deadline in late July, could help the club stay afloat in what is shaping up to be a very competitive National League playoff race.

Checking In On 2024’s Reliever-To-Rotation Experiments

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The 2023-24 offseason saw several teams go outside the box to add to their rotation mix by announcing plans to convert an established reliever into (or back into) a starting pitcher. It’s not a new concept by any means, of course, but it’s always notable when a player who’s found some success in one pitching role is shifted to the other — be it one-inning relievers stretching out to join a rotation or struggling starters shifting to the ’pen and hoping to find new life as their stuff plays up.

In some instances — e.g. Jordan Hicks, Reynaldo Lopez — the pitchers in question signed lucrative multi-year deals as part of this planned pivot. For others, this role change comes amid their original six seasons of club control and could greatly impact their earnings in arbitration and/or in free agency down the road.

Now that we’re about a quarter of the way through the year, it seems like a good time to check in on how some of these role changes are playing out. Readers should note that this rundown will focus on pitchers who pitched exclusively or near-exclusively out of the bullpen last season. Pitchers like Boston’s Garrett Whitlock (who started 10 games last year and nine in 2022) or Tampa Bay’s Zack Littell (who moved to the rotation last summer and finished out the ’23 campaign as a starter) aren’t the focus here so much as arms who were more strictly confined to short relief recently.

Since so many of these transitions are going to bring about clear workload concerns, we’ll check back in periodically throughout the season. For now, here’s how things are going through about 25% of the schedule.

Jordan Hicks, RHP, Giants

Hicks’ transition from flamethrowing late-inning reliever to … well, flamethrowing starting pitcher has gone seamlessly thus far. It’s only nine starts and 48 innings, but the 28-year-old boasts a 2.44 ERA in his move to the rotation. A career-low 19.9% strikeout rate is a red flag, but Hicks’ 8.2% walk rate is lower than the league average and a career-best mark as well. His 56.2% grounder rate isn’t quite as high as the 60% mark he carried into the season but is still more than 10 percentage points above average.

As one would expect, Hicks’ blazing sinker has lost quite a bit of velocity now that he’s not throwing one max-effort inning at a time. His sinker sat at 100.2 mph last year but is clocking in at 96 mph in 2024. Even with four fewer miles per hour on his primary offering, however, Hicks has more than enough velocity to keep hitters off balance.

Hicks has also fully incorporated the splitter he tinkered with in 2023 into his arsenal this year. After throwing it just 1.6% of the time last season, he’s thrown 22.5% splitters in 2024. Opponents may as well not even bother swinging at the pitch. Hicks has finished off 42 plate appearances with a splitter, and hitters have posted a .079/.167/.105 slash in those instances. Opposing batters have chased the pitch off the plate at more than a 35% clip, and Hicks boasts a huge 42.9% whiff rate on the pitch, per Statcast.

The big question for Hicks, as it is for virtually any pitcher making this transition, is how his arm will hold up once he begins pushing it into uncharted waters. Hicks has never topped 77 2/3 innings in a big league season. That mark came way back in his 2018 rookie showing. The 105 frames Hicks tallied as a minor league starter in 2017 are the most he’s ever pitched in a full season. He’ll be approaching his MLB-high after he makes another four starts or so and will be on the cusp of a new career-high about 10 to 11 starts from now — when there’s still roughly half a season left to play. Hicks wasn’t even especially durable as a reliever, only surpassing 35 appearances in two of his five prior big league seasons. The early returns are outstanding, but the real test will probably come in late June and into July.

Reynaldo Lopez, RHP, Braves

Unlike Hicks, Lopez is no stranger to starting games at the MLB level. He started 73 games for the White Sox from 2018-20 after coming over from the Nationals alongside Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning in the Adam Eaton trade. The first of those three seasons went well, but Lopez stumbled in 2019-20 and began to transition to the bullpen in 2021.

The shift to a relief role seemed to suit the right-hander well. His already impressive velocity played up even further. Lopez averaged better than 95 mph as a starter in ’18-’20 but saw that number jump to 97.1 mph in 2022 and a massive 98.4 mph in 2023. Over those two seasons, he pitched to a sharp 3.02 earned run average. His rate stats were somewhat uneven, as he showed pristine command (4.3% walk rate) but an only slightly higher-than-average strikeout rate in ’22 before jumping to a huge 29.9% strikeout rate in ’23 … but pairing it with a bloated 12.2% walk rate. Taken together, however, Lopez gave the Sox 131 1/3 innings with that 3.02 ERA, 31 holds, six saves, a 27.4% strikeout rate and an 8.5% walk rate.

When he signed with the Braves for three years and $30MM, that generally fell in line with expectations for what he’d command as a late-inning reliever. However, it quickly became clear that the Braves were going to stretch Lopez back out. There was plenty of skepticism — myself very much included, admittedly — but the experiment has gone better than anyone could’ve imagined.

Thus far, Lopez has not only been the Braves’ best starter but one of the most effective starters in the league. He’s pitched 35 1/3 innings of 1.53 ERA ball. His velocity has dipped back down to his 2018-20 levels, sitting 95.6 mph, but that’s to be expected working out of the rotation. His 25.5% strikeout rate is better than average but not elite. His 9.9% walk rate could stand to come down. But Lopez is throwing more curveballs than ever before (10%), has largely abandoned his changeup and is keeping the ball on the ground at a career-best 41.1% rate. That’s a bit shy of the 42.8% league average but noticeably higher than the 35% clip he posted during his time with the White Sox.

The uptick in grounders is one reason that Lopez is yielding a career-low 0.51 homers per nine innings. The other is a 5.4% homer-to-flyball rate that he almost certainly can’t sustain. That fluky HR/FB and an abnormally high 88.7% strand rate are part of the reason metrics like SIERA (3.87) and xFIP (3.79), which normalize HR/FB, tend to peg him for some regression. Still, even if he’s bound to see his ERA tick up by a couple runs, Lopez has looked great through his first six turns.

Time will tell just how his arm can handle a return to his 2018-19 workloads, but the early results are excellent — and the importance of his breakout is magnified by the loss of ace Spencer Strider to season-ending elbow surgery. Notably, Lopez exited last night’s start with some tightness in his back, but manager Brian Snitker suggested after the game that he’s likely to make his next start.

A.J. Puk, LHP, Marlins

On the other side of the coin, the Marlins’ efforts to move Puk back into a starting role quickly went down in flames. Puk, a former No. 6 overall pick who worked as a starter in the minors, looked excellent this spring. He pitched 13 2/3 innings over four starts and two earned runs with a 23-to-4 K/BB ratio. The transition could hardly have gotten out to a more promising start.

In his first four regular-season starts, Puk also pitched 13 2/3 innings. The similarities stop there. Opponents bludgeoned Puk for 14 earned runs on 19 hits and a stunning 17 walks. He fanned only 12 of his 77 opponents (15.6%).

Miami placed Puk on the injured list on April 20 due to left shoulder fatigue. He returned from the injured list just yesterday. Despite myriad injuries in their rotation, the Fish have already pulled the plug on the rotation experiment for Puk, announcing that he’ll be back in the bullpen following his stay on the injured list. It’s a role he thrived in over the past two seasons, logging a 3.51 ERA, 29.4% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate while piling up 22 saves and 19 holds.

If Puk returns to form as a reliever — he was particularly impressive in ’23, striking out 32.2% of opponents against a 5.4% walk rate — the ill-fated rotation gambit will be little more than a footnote in what hopefully ends up as a strong overall career as a reliever. If Puk’s struggles persist, however, there’ll be plenty of second-guessing the decision to take one of the team’s best relief arms and stretch him out despite a litany of injury troubles that had combined to limit Puk to only 147 2/3 innings in his entire career prior to this season.

Garrett Crochet, LHP, White Sox

Crochet has worked to a pedestrian earned run average on the season due to a bevy of home runs allowed, but the former first-rounder who’s drawn comparisons to Chris Sale since being drafted by the White Sox has turned in elite strikeout and walk numbers. The 4.63 ERA looks unimpressive, but Crochet has fanned more than a third of his opponents (34.2%) against a pristine 4.8% walk rate.

Crochet boasts an excellent 14.5% swinging-strike rate and is averaging 96.9 mph on his heater. That’s a ways from the 100.2 mph he averaged in six innings as a rookie in 2020, but Crochet has had Tommy John surgery since that time and is working in longer stints now as opposed to bullpen work in ’20. This year’s velocity actually slightly exceeds his average velocity from working purely as a reliever in 2022-23.

In terms of workload concern, Crochet is up there with Puk in terms of extreme uncertainty. He entered the season with a total of 73 big league innings since his No. 11 overall selection in 2020 and is already at 46 2/3 innings on the young 2024 campaign. So long as he keeps missing bats and limiting walks anywhere near his current levels, the run-prevention numbers will come down — FIP and SIERA peg him at 3.33 and 2.37, respectively — but it’s anyone’s guess as to how Crochet will hold up. He skipped the minor leagues entirely, so even if you add in his whole minor league body of work, that’d only tack last year’s 12 1/3 rehab innings onto his track record. Going from a total of 85 1/3 professional innings over a four-year period to a full starter’s workload is bound to have some bumps in the road, but so far Crochet looks quite intriguing as a starting pitcher.

Jose Soriano, RHP, Angels

The Angels nearly lost Soriano back in 2020, when the Pirates selected him in the Rule 5 Draft. At the time, Soriano was wrapping up his rehab from 2020 Tommy John surgery and could’ve been stashed in a rebuilding Pittsburgh bullpen upon his reinstatement from the injured list. A setback in his recovery early in the season prompted another wave of imaging and revealed a new tear, however. Soriano underwent a second Tommy John surgery on June 16, 2021. He was eventually returned to the Angels.

Unfortunate as that back-to-back pair of surgeries was, Soriano’s injury troubles allowed the Angels to keep him in the system. They’re now reaping the benefits. The flamethrowing righty made 38 relief appearances last season and pitched to a quality 3.64 ERA with a huge 30.3% strikeout rate — albeit against a troubling 12.4% walk rate. Soriano averaged 98.6 mph on his heater last year and wound up picking up 15 holds, as the then-rookie righty increasingly worked his way into higher-leverage spots.

The Angels announced early in spring training that Soriano would be stretched out as a starter. His ramp-up continued into the regular season. His first two appearances this year came out of the bullpen but both spanned three innings. He’s since moved into the rotation and has looked quite impressive. Through his first seven starts, Soriano touts a 3.58 ERA with an above-average 24.8% strikeout rate and an outstanding 62.8% ground-ball rate. Even though he’s working in longer stints, he’s improved his fastball and is now sitting at 99.3 mph with it. His 12.4% walk rate still needs improvement, but the returns here are quite promising.

Soriano only pitched 65 1/3 innings between the minors and big leagues last year, and he’s already at 38 2/3 frames on the 2024  season. He’s never pitched more than 82 1/3 innings in a professional season. We’ll see how he fares as he pushes past those thresholds, but there’s a lot to like with this rotation move — even though it’s garnered far less attention than some of the others around the game.

Tyler Alexander, LHP, Rays

The Rays obviously have a knack for finding hidden gems and converting unheralded arms into viable starting pitchers — hey there, Zack Littell — and Alexander is an example of their latest efforts to do so. The left-hander has started for the Tigers in the past and functioned in a swingman role, but the Rays picked him up in a low-cost move following a DFA in Detroit with the idea of stretching him out. Since it’s Tampa Bay, not all of Alexander’s “starts” have been, well, actual starts. He’s followed an opener on multiple occasions already, but he’s followed that one- or two-inning table-setter with at least four innings each time out.

Overall, Alexander has made eight appearances and averaged just under five frames per outing (39 2/3 total innings). He’s sitting on a pretty rough 5.45 ERA, thanks in part to a six-run drubbing at the hands of the Yankees last time out (though he did at least complete seven frames in that start, helping to spare the Tampa Bay bullpen). Alexander’s 19.1% strikeout rate is about three percentage points shy of average. His 6.9% walk rate is about two points better than average. However, he’s taken his longstanding status as a fly-ball pitcher to new heights in 2024, inducing grounders at just a 30.4% clip.

Alexander’s 14.5% homer-to-flyball ratio is only a couple percentage points north of average, but because of the sheer volume of fly-balls he’s yielding, he’s still averaging more than two taters per nine frames. Opponents have posted an ugly 11.8% barrel rate against him (ugly for Alexander, that is). If he can’t cut back on the fly-balls and/or start finding a way to avoid the barrel more regularly, it’s going to be hard for Alexander to find sustained success. The Rays don’t convert on every dart-throw — much as it’s fun to joke to the contrary — and so far the Alexander experiment hasn’t paid off.

Bryse Wilson, RHP, Brewers

Wilson’s move to the rotation wasn’t necessarily planned, but injuries up and down the Brewers’ staff forced the issue. Five of his past six outings have been starts and he’s sporting an eye-catching 1.78 ERA in that span. The rest of the numbers in that stretch are less impressive. Wilson has a tepid 17.3% strikeout rate in that stretch but has walked an untenable 13.5% of opponents. Opponents have posted a hefty 45.7% hard-hit rate (95 mph or more) against him during that time. Were it not for a .191 BABIP and 92.2% strand rate, the ERA wouldn’t look nearly as rosy. Metrics like FIP (4.64) and SIERA (5.34) are quite bearish.

Wilson is still scheduled to take the ball on Saturday in Houston, but his recent stretch of run-prevention doesn’t seem sustainable without some improvements in his K-BB profile.

White Sox Making Changes In Rotation

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The 6-25 White Sox are shuffling up their rotation mix a bit. Manager Pedro Grifol told the Sox beat yesterday that right-hander Brad Keller would likely move into the rotation in the near future (X link via Scott Merkin of MLB.com), and he’s now listed as the probable starter Friday. Meanwhile, right-hander Mike Clevinger has made a pair of starts in Triple-A Charlotte since returning on a one-year deal and is likely to join the rotation next week, tweets Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Right-hander Erick Fedde has been Chicago’s only above-average starter this season. Lefty Garrett Crochet started brilliantly but has been hit hard of late, ballooning his ERA to just under 6.00. Michael Soroka, Jonathan Cannon, Chris Flexen and Nick Nastrini have all made multiple starts but all came into today with an ERA north of 6.00. Flexen allowed just two earned runs over five innings today, lowering his ERA to 4.85. The Sox have combined for a 5.52 ERA out of the rotation, ranking 29th in the big leagues — ahead of only the Rockies. White Sox starters have averaged an MLB-worst 1.61 homers per nine frames.

Keller, 28, is a longtime division foe for the Sox, having spent his entire big league career prior to this season with the Royals. From 2018-20, Keller emerged as a steadying presence for Kansas City, going from a Rule 5 long reliever to a core member of the rotation. He pitched 360 1/3 frames of 3.50 ERA ball during that stretch, but his career went the opposite direction in three subsequent seasons.

From 2021-23, Keller was tagged for a 5.14 ERA as his command took a noticeable turn for the worse. He was limited to just 45 1/3 innings in 2023, logging a 4.57 ERA but issuing an alarming 45 walks along the way. Keller’s season ended early due to thoracic outlet symptoms. He inked a minor league deal with the ChiSox during the offseason and has made one scoreless relief appearance (1 2/3 innings) in addition to three starts at the Triple-A level, where he turned in a 4.50 ERA in 16 innings and piled up grounders at a huge 62.5% clip.

Clevinger will be entering his second season with the Sox. He started 24 games for the South Siders last year and notched a 3.77 ERA with a 20% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate and 30.9% ground-ball rate. Despite a solid season on the mound, Clevinger lingered in free agency and ultimately settled on a one-year, $3MM deal to return to the White Sox. He signed late enough that he required the current Triple-A tune-up before joining the big league rotation.

It’s not immediately clear who’ll lose their spot. Nastrini and Cannon have both already been optioned to Triple-A. Soroka and Flexen are veteran stopgaps who are only signed for the current season. Flexen has struggled mightily in the rotation and fared better in a pair of bullpen appearances, but as mentioned, he had a nice performance in today’s series finale against the Twins. Soroka has completed five innings in just three of his seven starts. Crochet’s workload figures to be monitored after he pitched just 24 1/3 frames last year in his return from 2022 Tommy John surgery. He’s never topped 54 1/3 innings in a professional season since being selected in the first round of the 2020 draft.

White Sox Name Garrett Crochet Opening Day Starter

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White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet came into 2024 looking to make the move from the bullpen to the rotation. Not only will he break camp as a starter, but the Sox announced that Crochet will take the ball on Opening Day.

Crochet, 25 in June, has taken an unusual and winding road to get here. He served mostly in a swing role at the University of Tennessee, logging 63 2/3 innings in 2018 across 17 outings, six of which were starts. The following year, he threw 65 frames over 18 outings, six of which were starts. In 2020, he was slowed by some arm soreness and made just one start of 3 1/3 innings before the season was shut down by the Covid pandemic.

Despite the fairly limited workload, Crochet was hitting 100 miles per hour with his fastball with a strong slider and changeup to match. The Sox believed in him enough that they nabbed him in the first round, 11th overall, in the 2020 draft. They didn’t hesitate to push him to the majors, as he was up with the Sox by the middle of September that year, debuting at the age of 21. He tossed six innings out of the Chicago bullpen and then another 2/3 of an inning in the postseason, all scoreless, though he was shut down in the playoffs with some forearm tightness.

In 2021, he got to make a more proper major league debut, though stayed in the bullpen all year. He tossed 54 1/3 innings with a 2.82 earned run average. His 11.7% walk rate was a bit high but he also struck out 28.3% of batters faced. He added another 2 1/3 innings in the playoffs. There were some rumblings about moving him to the rotation going into 2022 but it became something of a moot point when the lefty required Tommy John surgery in April of 2022, wiping out that entire season for him.

Crochet returned to the club in May of 2023 and was kept in relief, understandable given his long layoff. He made 10 appearances before landing on the injured list in mid-June due to some shoulder inflammation. He stayed on the shelf for three months, returning in the middle of September to make three more appearances. He finished the year with a 3.55 ERA in 12 2/3 innings.

Throughout all of those twists and turns, Crochet maintained he wanted to try his hand at a rotation job someday. The Sox let him get stretched out here in spring and he has responded well, having tossed nine official innings, all scoreless. He struck out 12 batters without walking any, allowing seven hits. It seems he has impressed the Chicago brass enough that they will give him the ball on Opening Day, when he will make his first major league start. Per Sarah Langs of MLB.com, this will be just the ninth time in the past 110 years that a pitcher makes his first career start on Opening Day, just the third in the past 80 years and just the second in the past 43 years.

That’s at least partially a reflection of the rotation situation for the White Sox. They recently traded Dylan Cease, who was previously in line to be the club’s Opening Day starter, to the Padres. That was the latest in a series of moves that subtracted from the club’s starting depth. Both Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn were traded at last year’s deadline when they were impending free agents, while Mike Clevinger stayed through the 2023 campaign but eventually departed via free agency. Michael Kopech, who started 27 games for the Sox, was recently moved to the bullpen after a frustrating season.

That leaves Crochet in a rotation mix that will also include some offseason pickups. Erick Fedde was signed to a two-year deal after a strong season in the KBO. Chris Flexen got a one-year deal as the Sox hope for a bounceback after he had poor results in 2023. Michael Soroka was acquired from Atlanta in the trade that sent Aaron Bummer the other way.

That leaves one spot open for someone else. Nick Nastrini, acquired in the Lynn trade, has had an impressive spring. He’s allowed just one earned run in 11 innings but isn’t yet on the 40-man roster. Jake Eder is on the roster but has been slowed by shoulder soreness and hasn’t thrown in an official spring game. Jairo Iriarte also has a roster spot but he was reassigned to minor league camp by the Padres before coming over to the Sox in the Cease trade. Jared Shuster is also on the roster but was optioned by the Sox yesterday.

The Sox also have veterans like Chad Kuhl, Brad Keller and Jake Woodford in camp as non-roster invitees but could also look outside the organization for help. While they won’t be splurging on someone like Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery, they were recently linked to free agent Michael Lorenzen and the open market still features guys like Clevinger, Noah Syndergaard, Johnny Cueto, Zack Greinke and others.

However it looks on Opening Day, it will likely change throughout the year. Soroka and Flexen are both impending free agents, making them candidates to be on the trading block this summer while the Sox are expected to be out of contention. The same could be true of Fedde, who will have a year and a half left on his deal a few months from now.

Crochet, meanwhile, will surely hit a workload limit at some point. Thanks to his injuries and working out of the bullpen, he has just 73 innings of major league experience. Since he was hurried to the majors after being drafted in 2020 when the minor leagues were cancelled, he’s hardly thrown on the farm either. His 12 1/3 innings while on rehab assignments last year are the totality of his minor league experience.

His time with Tennessee amounted to just 132 innings over three years. When combining that with his major and minor league work, it adds up to just 217 1/3 innings over the past six years. Tacking on his three playoff innings gets him to 220 1/3. That includes just 25 innings last year between the majors and minors and none the year before. That will make it essentially impossible for him to shoulder a full starter’s workload here in 2024, so the Sox will presumably have to make a decision about shutting it down at some point, with an eye on Crochet then pushing further in 2025.

Despite that lack of workload, Crochet has over three years of service time and avoided arbitration by agreeing to a salary of $800K for 2024. He’ll slated for two more arbitration seasons and would hit free agency after 2026 if he’s not optioned to the minors for an extended stretch of time between now and then. The lefty has been clear that moving to the rotation is a personal goal of his but he will also be in line for larger earnings if he makes the transition successfully. Assuming he does indeed reach the open market after 2026, he’ll be entering his age-28 season in 2027.

Chris Getz Discusses Kopech, Crochet

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White Sox general manager Chris Getz spoke with reporters this morning. His implication that Dylan Cease was likely to remain on the roster into the season was the most notable development, but Getz also addressed a pair of Cease’s potential rotation mates.

The first-year GM said he still views Michael Kopech as a starting pitcher (link via James Fegan of Sox Machine). Chicago moved the hard-throwing righty to the bullpen at the tail end of a dismal 2023 campaign. Kopech posted a 5.16 ERA while walking more than 15% of opposing hitters in 26 starts through the first week of September. Manager Pedro Grifol deployed him in short stints — three relief appearances and a deliberately brief start as an opener — to close the year. Kopech was tagged for seven runs in 3 2/3 frames before undergoing a season-ending knee procedure.

That was a minor cyst removal surgery that isn’t expected to affect Kopech’s preparation for the season. The bigger question is whether he’ll be able to rebound from a performance perspective. Kopech showed some promise over 25 starts two seasons ago. He turned in a 3.54 ERA, albeit with a middling 21.3% strikeout rate and 11.5% walk percentage, in 2022. That was Kopech’s first full season working from the rotation. The hope was that he’d take a step forward with greater experience in the role. It did not happen last year.

Kopech built up to starting after working in relief in the early portion of his MLB career. Injuries, most notably a Tommy John procedure, wiped out his 2019-20 campaigns. The Sox used him out of the bullpen in ’21 to keep his workload in check. He was quite good in that capacity, turning in a 3.50 ERA with a massive 36.1% strikeout percentage and a much more manageable 8.4% walk rate over 69 1/3 innings.

That general playbook is one which Garrett Crochet is hoping to follow. The former first-round pick has come out of the bullpen for all 72 of his MLB appearances dating back to 2020. An elbow ligament replacement cost him the ’22 season and the first six weeks last year. Shoulder inflammation sent him back to the injured list a month after he returned and kept him on the shelf into September. The Tennessee product finished the year with 12 2/3 innings over 13 appearances.

Crochet has nevertheless been vocal about his desire to battle for a rotation spot. The Sox certainly aren’t going to expect him to make 30+ starts given his limited reps over the past two seasons. However, Getz left the door open for Crochet to compete for an Opening Day rotation job.

“It was very clear he was excited to get a look as a starter and when you’ve got a player that has that type of conviction, I think you’re doing the player a disservice to ignore that,” the GM told reporters. “He needs to be built up further. He hasn’t had too many starter innings under his belt. That’s even going back to college. But he’s a special arm. He’s shown three pitches in the past, so he’s got the starter kit.” Fegan writes that Getz indicated Crochet could spend some time on optional assignment to Triple-A Charlotte as the southpaw trains for a heavier workload.

Cease leads the staff, while KBO returnee Erick Fedde slots into the middle. Kopech and Crochet join Michael Soroka and Jared Shuster (acquired from Atlanta in the Aaron Bummer trade), free agent pickup Chris Flexen, and incumbent depth starters Jesse Scholtens and Touki Toussaint in competition for rotation work.

White Sox GM Discusses Rotation, Right Field

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White Sox general manager Chris Getz spoke with reporters today and discussed some of the club’s plans for the rest of the offseason and the upcoming campaign, with Scott Merkin of MLB.com and Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times among those to relay the information. Getz acknowledged that Dylan Cease has received plenty of interest from other clubs but said that the Sox won’t trade him unless they feel the deal makes the club better. Elsewhere in the rotation, he said that Garrett Crochet will come into the season preparing to be a starter and that Chris Flexen is expected to be a starter as well. In terms of the lineup, he said that they don’t have an established starting right fielder as of right now and are open to external additions.

Cease, 28, has posted excellent results over the past three years and has been incredibly popular on the trade market in recent months. Teams such as the Yankees, Orioles, Dodgers, Cardinals, Red Sox, Mets, Braves and Reds have all been connected to his market this winter. Some of those clubs have since pivoted to other moves but the rumors around the righty have continued to swirl, with many in the industry still expecting a trade before the start of the season. But from the point of view of the Sox, they don’t feel they have to make a deal. “We’ve had [trade] conversations about Dylan [Cease] but we’re not going to move someone unless there’s a benefit,” Getz said.

The righty is still under club control for two years, so the Sox don’t have to move him immediately if they don’t want to. But his trade value won’t get any higher at this point, making it sensible for them to take the best offer they can get at the moment. By the time the trade deadline rolls around, they will only be marketing a year and a half of his services and the number of suitors might dwindle if some interested clubs fall out of contention. There’s also the ever-present risk of an injury sapping Cease of his trade value.

It was reported back in December that the Sox were being patient with the market, seeing if the interest in Cease picked up after Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed and the clubs that missed on him pivoted. Yamamoto has now signed with the Dodgers, leaving Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery as the top free agents available but Cease one of the top trade candidates. Pitchers like Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber and Jesús Luzardo have also been in trade rumors but it’s unclear how open their respective clubs are to offers.

In the case of Cease, the Sox have reportedly been setting a high asking price, which is perhaps why no deal has been consummated as of yet. It was reported last month that the Sox asked the Reds for four of their top prospects, which seemed to put an end to the discussions. The Reds agreed to terms with free agent Frankie Montas on a deal about a week after that report. Whether the Sox will back down from that apparent lofty asking price, or some other club will bite the bullet and meet it, remains to be seen.

The high level of interest and the asking price are both reflections of his immense talent. Over the past three campaigns, he has taken the ball 97 times and produced an earned run average of 3.54 in that time, along with a 29.8% strikeout rate. FanGraphs considered him to be worth a combined 12.6 wins above replacement in those years, the eighth-best tally out of all big league pitchers. His ERA jumped to 4.58 ERA in 2023 but there seems to be little concern about that. His 27.3% strikeout rate was also a couple of ticks below the previous two seasons but he was also held back by his .330 batting average on balls in play and 69.4% strand rate, both of which are on the unlucky side. His 3.72 FIP and 4.10 SIERA suggest he was closer to his previous self than the ERA may indicate.

In addition to his skills, he’s also attractive due to his contractual situation. While frontline starters can secure nine-figure guarantees as free agents, Cease is still in his arbitration years. He is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a salary of $8.8MM and will be due one more raise before he’s slated for free agency after 2025.

Whether the Sox eventually move Cease or not, they will have plenty of question marks in their rotation. Pitchers like Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech, Michael Soroka and Touki Toussaint will be in the mix for jobs but there’s uncertainty with each one of them. Fedde is coming off a tremendous showing in the Korea Baseball Organization but struggled in his MLB career prior to that. Soroka was mediocre in 2023 after missing most of the previous three seasons due to injuries. Kopech and Toussaint have battled significant control problems in their respective careers.

It appears the club is keeping an open mind with their rotation mix, with Crochet set to be built up this year. The lefty has previously expressed an interest in return to a rotation gig and will apparently get some kind of shot in the months to come.

Now 24 years old, Crochet was drafted by the Sox in 2020 and was quickly launched to the majors, making his debut later that same year as a reliever. In 2021, he stuck with the big league bullpen and posted an ERA of 2.82 over 54 appearances. There was some consideration of stretching him out as a starter going into 2022 but he required Tommy John surgery that April and missed the entire campaign. He returned to the Sox last year as a reliever but missed three months of the season due to shoulder inflammation and eventually made just 13 appearances.

Due to his limited workload in recent years, it may not be possible to fully stretch him out in just one season, something Getz acknowledged. Due to the canceled minor leagues in 2020, the Tommy John layoff and then the shoulder troubles, the southpaw has thrown just 73 big league innings over the past four years, as well as another 12 1/3 on rehab assignments in 2023. That would make it difficult for him to suddenly jump to 200 or even 150 innings in 2024, but the club will nonetheless give him some runway to see how it plays out.

“He believes he can be a starter. We’ve seen him be a starter in the past. So we are going to go into spring prepared to stretch him out and we’ll make adjustments along the way if need be,” Getz said. “He hasn’t started in a couple years. So, it’s going to take a little bit of time to appropriately stretch him out. We are going in with the intention for him to be a starter in 2024.” Crochet is eligible for arbitration this winter and is currently slated for free agency after 2026.

Also in the rotation mix will be Flexen, with Getz saying they expect starter’s innings out of him. The righty has worked both as a starter and reliever in recent years, with a disastrous 2023 campaign but better results in the two prior seasons. Over 2021 and 2022, he tossed 317 1/3 innings for the Mariners, with 53 of his 64 appearances coming as a starter. He had a 3.66 ERA in that time, only striking out 16.5% of batters but limiting walks and barrels.

But in 2023, he finished with a 6.86 ERA, splitting his time between the Mariners and Rockies. The Sox decided to overlook that rough showing and gave Flexen a $1.75MM guarantee on a big league deal. Though his performance will ultimately have a bearing on his role, the club appears to be planning on slotting him into the rotation mix.

Turning away from the rotation, Getz also said the club doesn’t have an established right fielder. He mentioned that they have internal options, including non-roster invitees, but that they are looking to make additions. That is a reflection of the poor debut season of Óscar Colás, who was a notable prospect coming into 2023 but struggled badly in his first 75 major league games. He batted .216/.257/.314 in his 263 plate appearances and also received poor grades for his defense. That led to tallies of -1.3 wins above replacement from FanGraphs and -1.5 from Baseball Reference. He still has two option years remaining, allowing the club to keep him in the minors if he doesn’t show signs of significant improvement.

The free agent market still features some notable outfield-capable guys, such as Adam Duvall, Robbie Grossman, Jorge Soler, Tommy Pham, Joc Pederson, David Peralta, Eddie Rosario, Joey Gallo, Whit Merrifield and Randal Grichuk. The trade market could theoretically feature guys such as Randy Arozarena and Max Kepler, though it would be a surprise if a retooling club like the White Sox gave up significant prospects in any deal.

In terms of the internal options who could be battling Colás, Gavin Sheets has had some good hitting results in the past but is coming off a rough season and is considered a poor defender. Brett Phillips was signed to a minor league deal and is a strong defender but weak at the plate. Wynton Bernard and Mark Payton have been signed to minor league deals as well but both of them have less than 70 major league plate appearances. Given those internal options, keeping an eye out for upgrades makes sense, whether that’s a free agent signing, a trade or even just a waiver claim.

AL Central Notes: Buxton, Crochet, Tigers

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Twins outfielder Byron Buxton has dealt with many injuries throughout his career, which has led the Twins to use him exclusively as a designated hitter so far this season. However, it seems that was not simply a choice they made about protecting him from future injuries. “From the beginning of the year, he has not been physically able to play in the outfield,” manager Rocco Baldelli tells Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com. “If he was, he would be out there. If we even thought that it was possible that he could play in the outfield right now, he would be out there.”

Buxton underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in September of last year and seemingly recuperated enough to play but not enough that the Twins want him out on the grass. “Nothing has really gone up or down on that scale since the beginning of the year,” Baldelli said. “It hasn’t gotten closer. It hasn’t gotten further away. It’s basically in a similar spot. He is basically in a similar spot as he was in the beginning.”

Of course, the Twins could have opted to have Buxton start the season on the injured list and then activated him once he was 100% healthy, but it seems they preferred to have his bat in the lineup even without any defensive contributions and with diminished capabilities overall. Buxton’s sprint speed of 29.3 feet per second this year is roughly in line with last year’s 29.1 figure, though he has been steadily declining since hitting 30.9 in his rookie season. That seems to line up with the assessment that his knee hasn’t gotten fully healthy.

It might also be impacting him at the plate, as he’s hitting .209/.313/.428 on the year. That translates to a 106 wRC+, indicating he’s still been above average but below his own typical output. He hit .258/.316/.558 from 2019 to 2022 for a 136 wRC+. His .259 batting average on balls in play might point to some bad luck but his hard hit rate and average exit velocity are also down from last year. He’s also been struggling more of late, slashing just .149/.273/.266 since May 5. All hitters go through slumps, of course, but whether or not the knee is hampering him will be an interesting situation for the Twins to monitor as the season progresses.

Some more notes from the AL Central…

  • The White Sox put left-hander Garrett Crochet on the injured list yesterday, retroactive to June 17, due to left shoulder inflammation. Right-hander Jimmy Lambert was reinstated from his own IL stint in a corresponding move. Crochet was drafted in 2020 and was quickly launched into the majors just a few months later. He’s since been able to post quality results out of the bullpen with a 2.69 ERA thus far, though injuries have also been an issue. He went on the IL in 2021 due to a back strain and then had his 2022 wiped out by Tommy John surgery. He returned this year but is now back on the IL after 10 outings. There hasn’t been anything to suggest this current injury is especially concerning but it’s yet another roadblock to him building up his workload. He has expressed a desire to return to starting pitching someday but has only been able to log 70 1/3 major league innings in his career thus far.
  • The Tigers have faced a number of challenges in their rotation this year, which each of Eduardo Rodriguez, Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, Spencer Turnbull, Alex Faedo and Beau Brieske currently on the injured list. Given all of those absences, it’s hardly surprising that the club’s starters have a collective 4.91 ERA that places them 25th out of the 30 clubs in the league. Things could be on the verge of improving, however, with most of that group nearing returns. Chris McCosky of The Detroit News takes a look at the different hurlers and their rehabs, with Skubal and Manning seemingly the closest since they are already on rehab assignments at the Triple-A level. The Tigers are just 32-41 coming into today’s action but are only 3.5 games off the lead in the weak division. Getting some young starters back in the mix would surely help them stay afloat in that wide open competition. Manning had a 3.43 ERA last year but has been limited to just two outings so far this year due to a fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot. Skubal had a 3.52 ERA last year but has been out of action since undergoing flexor tendon surgery in August.

White Sox Notes: Crochet, Hendriks, Clevinger

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The White Sox have used flamethrowing lefty Garrett Crochet exclusively as a reliever to this point in his big league career, but the former No. 11 overall pick tells Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times that he still has his sights set on an eventual rotation spot. Asked about the possibility of returning to a starting role down the road, Crochet acknowledged that it’s something that’s “definitely in the back of my mind” and that he “hopes” to eventually have that opportunity.

Any such transition isn’t likely to happen in 2023 after the lefty pitched just 54 1/3 innings in 2021 before missing the 2022 season while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. The 6’6″ Crochet suggested that he’d be open to pitching in longer relief stints this season and building up his innings. Current ChiSox starters Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn and Mike Clevinger could all hit the open market this offseason. Giolito is a free agent at season’s end, while Clevinger has a mutual option (which are rarely exercised by both parties) and Lynn has an $18MM club option that feels pricey relative to his current struggles.

With a thin collection of pitching in the team’s system and virtually no high-end pitching prospects knocking on the door to the big leagues, moving Crochet into the rotation next season alongside Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech makes sense for the Sox. The looming trade deadline could bring about a shakeup on the pitching staff, with Giolito the likeliest to go in the event of a deadline sale. The asking price on both Cease and Kopech would surely be high, with both under club control through the 2025 season.

For now, Crochet is likely to remain in the ’pen, where he was recently joined by returning closer Liam Hendriks. The 34-year-old Hendriks’ return from a battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma was one of the best moments of the season for baseball fans, though it was quickly followed by an IL stint due to inflammation in his pitching elbow.

Luckily, imaging on Hendriks’ elbow did not reveal any structural damage, per Alden Gonzalez of ESPN. Hendriks has already received a cortisone shot to help combat the inflammation, and he’ll likely receive a platelet-rich plasma injection as well. Hendriks concedes that he felt “constant pain” throughout each of his past three appearances, wondering aloud whether his still-recent chemotherapy treatments have made it more difficult to recover between appearances.

Hendriks is hoping for a minimal stay on the 15-day IL but is on a wait-and-see timeline and stressed the importance of taking care of any health issues “the right way” during the current season. “I need to be cognizant of the way my body reacts and feels with everything, just due to the fact I still don’t have the strongest immune system,” Hendriks noted.

As for Clevinger, the Sox will perform additional testing on the righty today after he left last night’s start due to discomfort in his right biceps. Via Van Schouwen, Clevinger explained in the postgame that he “Felt my [biceps] grab, it grabbed pretty hard, kind of scared me”, though early testing in the trainer’s room was at least positive. The Sox will have a further update on him once today’s followup imaging is complete.

White Sox Reinstate Garrett Crochet

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The White Sox announced that left-hander Garrett Crochet has been reinstated from the injured list. Right-hander Nicholas Padilla was optioned in a corresponding move.

Crochet, 24 next month, will be pitching in the majors for the first time in about a year and a half once he makes his first appearance of the season. He required Tommy John surgery in early April of 2022, which wiped out that entire season for him and the early parts of 2023 as well.

Prior to that lost year, Crochet had quickly established himself as a viable major league arm. The Sox selected him 11th overall in the 2020 draft and added him to their 60-man player pool shortly thereafter, with the minor leagues having been canceled by the pandemic that year. He made his major league debut later in that campaign with five scoreless appearances in the regular season and another in the postseason. In 2021, he stuck in the big leagues and tossed 54 1/3 innings with a 2.82 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, 11.7% walk rate and 40.2% ground ball rate.

In the 2021-2022 offseason, the Sox seemed to give some consideration to stretching the lefty out as a starter, though those plans ended up getting pushed off the table by his surgery. It was reported in November that the club would keep him in a relief role in the 2023 season after the long layoff, with his health and performance this season perhaps dictating what role he will have in the future.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if the Sox ever have any interest in reconsidering a move to the rotation. Both Lucas Giolito and Mike Clevinger are slated for free agency this winter, while the club has an $18MM club option on Lance Lynn with a $1MM buyout. With Lynn currently sporting a 7.51 ERA on the year, he’ll need a strong finish for the club to consider picking that up, meaning it’s possible three holes open up in that rotation next year. With only Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech currently lined up for jobs in 2024, there would have to be at least some temptation to give Crochet a shot at making the switch if they felt he were capable of it from a health and workload perspective.

For now, the Sox could use the extra southpaw in the bullpen after Jake Diekman posted a 7.94 ERA in 13 outings and was designated for assignment. Aaron Bummer is still with the big league club but has a 9.45 ERA so far this year. Sammy Peralta was with the Sox earlier this year but struggled in his one outing before getting optioned. Tanner Banks had a more palatable 3.38 ERA in his eight innings this year but struck out just 16.1% of opponents and also has been optioned to the minors.

White Sox Notes: Anderson, Alberto, Crochet, Hendriks, Moncada

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The White Sox provided reporters with some updates on various injured players and their paths to rejoining the club, with James Fegan of The Athletic among those to relay the information (Twitter links). The ones closest to return are infielders Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto, as they will be starting rehab assignments with Triple-A Charlotte tomorrow.

Anderson, 30 in June, has been on the injured list since April 11 due to a knee sprain. He was initially estimated to miss between two and four weeks, so it’s still possible for him to come back in that time frame. One of the club’s better players, his absence has corresponded with a dreadful downward slide in the standings. The Sox were 5-6 when he hit the shelf but have gone just 2-12 since, now sporting a record of 7-18.

The club is obviously better when Anderson is a part of it. Dating back to the start of 2019, he has 51 home runs and 58 stolen bases. His .317/.346/.471 batting line in that time amounts to a wRC+ of 122. Any club would be worse off when subtracting that kind of production, but his replacements have fared quite poorly. With him out of action, Elvis Andrus has become the everyday shortstop, but he’s hitting just .195/.260/.230 on the year for a wRC+ of 37. The second base position, which was previously covered by Andrus, has been mostly split between Romy González and Lenyn Sosa in that time. González is currently hitting .129/.129/.129 for a wRC+ of -39 while Sosa’s line is .122/.143/.220, -8 wRC+.

The tremendous drop-off from Anderson’s typical production to those numbers has surely played a role in the club’s recent struggles, making his imminent return fantastic news for the club. He’s been floated as a speculative trade candidate this summer if they fail to return to contention, given he’s in the final guaranteed season of his contract. However, the club has an affordable $14MM option for 2024 with a $1MM buyout.

There’s also good news in the return of Albero, on the IL with a quad strain, though he’s more of a role player. His career batting line of .271/.293/.380 translates to a wRC+ of 77, which isn’t terribly exciting but would still mean the club would have options to turn to when others are struggling.

Just slightly behind those two is left-hander Garrett Crochet, who missed all of last year due to undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. He’s getting a check-up in Chicago but would be approved for his own rehab assignment if everything looks good there. The southpaw has a career 2.54 ERA in 60 1/3 innings, striking out 29% of batters faced against a 10.7% walk rate. Getting him back in the bullpen would surely give the club a nice boost back there.

Another boost for the bullpen could be coming as right-hander Liam Hendriks, who has missed all of this season so far while undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though he recently shared the good news that he’s been declared cancer free. He’s just slightly behind Crochet, as he will report to Chicago for his own pre-rehab checkup next week. He’s become one of the most dominant relievers in baseball in recent years, racking up 119 saves in the previous four seasons with a 2.26 ERA and 38.8% strikeout rate in that time.

While it’s great that those four players are making progress towards their respective returns, there’s one bit of news that’s less encouraging, per Fegan. Third baseman Yoán Moncada, who was been on the injured list for about two weeks due to back tightness, has been diagnosed with a protruding disc that is touching a nerve and causing pain in his glutes. While the issue is supposedly improving, Moncada still won’t be starting a rehab assignment during the current eight-game homestand that begins tonight. General manager Rick Hahn said that these issues don’t require offseason surgery about 80% of the time.

That’s surely not ideal information since Moncada’s IL placement originally seemed to be fairly precautionary. There was a period of a few days where it seemed he and the club were hoping to avoid an IL stint altogether but it’s now clearly more serious than initially thought. More updates will surely be forthcoming but it doesn’t seem like he’s close to a return and future surgery isn’t completely off the table.

Moncada has been fairly hot-and-cold in his career but was on a heater this year before the injury popped up, hitting .308/.325/.564 through his first nine games. Thankfully, his absence hasn’t created as much of a hole in the lineup as Anderson’s has, as Jake Burger has filled in with a .213/.309/.596 showing. Still, it’s a discouraging update on a key member of the core for a club that was held back by significant injuries last year and has been battling them again this year. His contract runs through 2024 with a $25MM option for 2025 that has a $5MM buyout.

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