Former Tennessee pitcher Garrett Crochet selected for MLB All-Star Game
Garrett Crochet on Sunday became the eighth former Tennessee Baseball player to be selected for Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. The Chicago White Sox pitcher is the first MLB All-Star for the Vols since Yan Gomes in 2018.
Crochet, in his first season as a starter, leads the MLB in strikeouts with 146, three more than Tyler Glasnow’s 143 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Crochet has a 6-6 record with a 3.08 ERA in 19 appearances, having pitched 105.1 innings with an 0.97 WHIP.
“What I said was, in an industry where everyone thought he was a reliever, he thought he was a starter,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said, according to MLB.com. “Now he’s probably one of the top five starters in the game — and not only is he a starter, he’s an All-Star.
“Credit goes to him, our pitching guys and everybody that’s been a part of him getting to this point. I’m really proud of him.”
White Sox pitching coach on Garrett Crochet: ‘He worked extremely hard’
Crochet appeared in five games in 2020, pitching 6.0 innings with eight strikeouts against three hits. He pitched 54.1 innings in 2021 with a 2.82 ERA, 65 strikeouts and 27 walks before missing all of 2022 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
He pitched only 12.2 innings last season, with a 3.55 ERA, striking out 12 with 13 walks.
“I know it’s been said a lot, but going back to Spring Training,” Crochet told MLB.com, “thinking I was going to start the year in (Triple-A) Charlotte and building up my innings, to knowing I made the rotation to knowing it was going to be Opening Day. You know, having it culminate in being an All-Star is a really cool feeling.”
“He worked extremely hard this offseason,” White Sox pitching coach Ethan Katz added. “Obviously open-minded to everything coming into it. My biggest thing was being mindful about his workload. Going into it, he wanted to do a lot very early. And just kind of taming the beast a little bit.”
Crochet pitched two full seasons at Tennessee, throwing 63.2 innings in 2018 with a 5.51 ERA and 65.0 innings in 2019 with a 4.02 ERA. He made one appearance in 2020 before the season was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic.
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During his time with the Vols, he had 149 strikeouts and just 48 walks over 132.0 innings with a 4.64 career ERA.
Garrett Crochet was the No. 11 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft
Crochet was the 11th overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, becoming the 16th first-round pick in Tennessee Baseball history at the time and the first since since Nick Senzel went No. 2 overall in the 2016 MLB Draft to the Cincinnati Reds.
Since then, the Vols have had Drew Gilbert (No. 28 overall, 2022), Jordan Beck (No. 38 overall, 2022) and Chase Dollander (No. 9 overall, 2023) all drafted in the first round.
Tennessee’s six other former MLB All-Stars, alongside Crochet and Gomes, are Tommy Bridges, Ed Bailey, Todd Helton, Phil Garner, Rick Honeycutt and R.A. Dickey.
Bridges appeared in six All-Star games (1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1940), the most among former Tennessee players. Both Bailey and Helton went five times each, with Bailey going in 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961 and 1963 and Helton in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
Garner went three times, in 1976, 1980 and 1981. Honeycutt went twice, in 1980 and 1983. Dickey was an All-Star in 2012.
