White Sox select left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet in first round

Garrett Crochet

As expected, I had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned five players that the White Sox could draft with the No. 11 overall pick in Wednesday's MLB Draft.

The Sox, of course, selected none of those five players. They took left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet out of the University of Tennessee.

I'm cool with taking a left-handed pitcher, even though Reid Detmers was my preference. Detmers was off the board when the Sox picked, however. He went No. 10 overall to the Los Angeles Angels.

When Crochet was chosen, the MLB Network guys compared him to Chris Sale. Um, OK.

I think there is some sort of rule that every player who gets picked in the first round has to be compared to someone who is a perennial All-Star, or somebody who is in the Hall of Fame. But I digress.

Crochet is a low-arm slot lefty with durability concerns. He's missed time in each of the past two seasons, with a broken jaw and then a sore shoulder. To be fair, the broken jaw came as a result of a line drive being hit right back at him, and what's a pitcher to do about that? That's just bad luck.

In any case, Crochet has the tools. His fastball sits at 96-100 mph, with the second-highest spin rate of any pitcher in the draft class. His slider is 70-grade, and it wipes out left-handed hitters. He's also got a changeup that he probably hasn't had to use much at Tennessee.

That actually sounds a little like Carlos Rodon when he came out of college. I'm not going to make the Sale comp, because Sale has three dominant pitches that he can throw for strikes in any count. Who has that? Not many people.

Crochet doesn't have great fastball command, and it's a pity he didn't get a chance to work on that this spring with the college baseball season being canceled.

Here's one way we might be able to draw a comparison between Crochet and Sale: Don't be surprised if Crochet comes to the big leagues quickly ... as a reliever. He's 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, and with his velocity and plus slider, he could probably pitch in certain situations out of the bullpen relatively quick. Given his arm angle and big body, he looks like a nightmare for lefty hitters.

Of course, with a first-round draft pick, you want more that just a situational pitcher. You want a cornerstone for your starting rotation. We'll see how the Sox plan to develop Crochet over the next year to 18 months.