MLB Season Preview: AL Central X-Factors
By Daniel Shi
X-Factors… Round Three! Halfway home! Week three, the final division of the American League in our tour of baseball’s X-Factors: secret weapons and make or break pieces for each AL Central team. The same rules as before applying, no trade candidates and no injury return candidates. You can see the AL West and AL East lists here.
Chicago White Sox: Relief Pitcher Garrett Crochet
I mean how can it not be Crochet, the dude can throw 102, When thinking of quintessential X-Factors, someone with Crochet’s profile springs to mind. A fastball so fast that sometimes it feels like there are flames coming out of the back.
One could make an Aroldis Chapman-esque comparison purely based on velocity alone but Garrett Crochet is not the second coming of him, but rather the first coming of Garrett Crochet. From his expedited path to the Majors, to the sheer power that Crochet possesses, there’s nothing ordinary about Crochet.
Perhaps the most impressive though, (as noted by FanSided’s own Mitchell Kaminski) is Crochet’s development as he learns how to pitch, not just be a flamethrower. Crochet’s fastball velocity would usually be cause for concern, but with an improved offspeed pitch mix, the results for Crochet were great. In his first full season in the MLB, Crochet pitched 54.1 innings of 2.82 ERA to go along with a 1.27 WHIP. If Crochet can be a constant producer in a White Sox bullpen with quite a few shuffling pieces, it will give Tony La Russa plenty of margin for error late in games.