What it would mean to Garrett Crochet to make the All-Star team at the end of this week? It's decidedly not the most stressful topic that has his name in the news of recent. His face and shoulders noticeably relax at the mention of something that is not trade rumors, questions about contract extensions nor his long-term home, and he eases into an answer he's already provided in some earlier version.
"It's a standard I think most players hold themselves to, or at least hope to achieve at some point in their career, but at the end of the day it's out of my control," Crochet said. "That season that [Dylan] Cease had in 2022, he's probably not upset that he didn't make the All-Star team. He's probably more happy with the season that he had, and that's kind of where I stand right now. If it were to not happen, I'm really comfortable with the way that I've handled myself."
So put it another way to the man who had to advocate for himself as a starting pitcher this offseason, and has responded with a 3.02 ERA in 101⅓ innings, with a league-leading 140 strikeouts: Would the external validation be a trophy to hold above those, like myself for example, who were quite skeptical of this project as recently as spring training? He spent plenty of time pining for it.
"He always wanted to be a starter," Lucas Giolito said. "Everyone was like, ‘I don’t know,’ all the question marks, whatever. He’s put that to bed. It’s awesome to see. With his frame and his stuff, yeah it’s starter stuff. To go out and be saying it — he’s been saying it for years, ‘I want to be a starter, I’m going to be a starter' — and now he’s going out and proving he’s a top-of-the-line guy. I’m so pumped for him."
"I think it would be a big 'Eff you' to a lot of people, which I would enjoy," Crochet said. "But like I was just saying, the way I've felt about my routine and about my outings, I'm in a place right now where I feel like I don't need external validation. Whether it happens or not, I'd be stoked, but I'm not going to be pissed."
What about being influential in the world of pitching? The game is prone to imitation of any new success story. Reliever-to-starter conversions aren't new even for highly drafted left-handers in this organization, but Crochet's project is certainly audacious enough to raise eyebrows. He is grateful to Getz for "taking my wishes at face value and trusting I was going to put the work in this offseason," but when it comes to changing the sport in his image, Crochet thought more people were going to follow in his path when he vaulted from the alternate site to the majors.
"I don't know, maybe I was a first rounder for a reason, so it wasn't a huge surprise that it was able to work out that way," Crochet said.
He smiles at hearing that Jake Eder, along with Noah Schultz, have joined him as tall, hard-throwing, supinating left-handers in the White Sox organization who have adapted the Brian Bannister cutter grip. That reaction fits too, because seeing Crochet talking to and pumping up other starters who might slyly have more professional experience than him has been a common clubhouse sight. But dominating with just his fastball and cutter is certainly not what he imagines as the lasting memory of his first half.
"I saw [Enrique Hernández] saying something after the Dodgers outing about I was pretty much a two-pitch guy and I was like, 'That kinda pisses me the fuck off,'" Crochet said with a laugh, insisting he has a four-pitch mix. "Because that's not how I view myself. Those are my greatest weapons and I'm going to use them the majority of the time, but in the final AB against Will Smith, I worked the changeup in there and I felt like that opened the at-bat up entirely."
The irony of Crochet becoming labeled a two-pitch guy is that he settled upon the cutter after an offseason of experimentation to build a much wider arsenal. He initially imagined building a curveball and making his sweeper harder. The big horizontal movement on Crochet's sweeper signals that he's naturally inclined to supinate (turn his hand upwards) in his delivery, so he worked on a seam-shifted changeup for a while, then a vulcan change, and now is back to throwing with a traditional grip. Following Marcus Stroman in the line of unexpected pitchers Crochet admires is Lance Lynn, and so he spent some of the offseason trying to add a seam-shifted sinker.
"The way that the game's transitioning now with so many guys having velo, it's like just because you throw 98 mph, you're no longer an outlier," Crochet said of adding different looks. "[Lynn] threw three different fastballs and it worked for him. That's the kind of pitcher I am, I've always been a power pitcher."
The idea of throwing three different fastball variants appeals to Crochet, so naturally he's a little restless at currently touting two, even if he's the toast of the league. Paring down Crochet's drive to reinvent and develop new wrinkles has been the battle, not the other way around.
"We had a conversation about [Mitch] Haniger [in Seattle]," said pitching coach Ethan Katz. "He was thinking about using the sweeper and I'm like, 'Garrett, he saw four fastballs so far and he struck out and popped up. We're getting later into the game, it's a close game. If you're going to get beat, it better be with the cutter or fastball. Don't get beat with the fourth option."
"I get that he doesn't like to be called a two-pitch pitcher, but we can call him a four-pitch guy and you only use two today if you need them, we can do that to appease him a little bit," said Pedro Grifol. "From my perspective, always calling a game, how can I get through the order once or twice on one, two pitches if I can. If I can't, I can't. But if I can, why not? What happens is you might get through the order with those two pitches and that might be all you need that game. Or you might get through the order with two pitches and then the third time around, that's when I'm going to throw you the changeup."
It's a shame that so much of Crochet's first half to date, a special set of 18 starts that have been a joy to watch, has been spent glancing toward something extraneous. A lack of run support, the feeling that his brilliance is wasted on a bad team, and even more pervasive is trade speculation, whether this current brilliance will still be worth paying for in 2027, or still be as lively this October.
With the way Crochet is wired, he could probably understand it. Speaking to him, it's hard to imagine him being content at being the same pitcher this time next season. Starting was always a notion he would speak of with interest and uncertainty, unsure if it would ever be realized. But now that he's unleashed, his mind bubbles with energy at all the directions he could go with it. And this planned two-question interview about the All-Star Game diverged his speculation on whether his supination is nature or nurture, since the latter suggests its something he could ultimately transcend.
At the least, the All-Star Game is reason to turn away from the future for a second and glance upon what he has done up to this point. Turns out, it's pretty great.
"Regardless of being voted or not," Crochet said. "At the end of the day, I could put my head to rest knowing that I performed well."
