For Crochet, TJ rehab offers a chance to reset
This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- Garrett Crochet looks at the recovery process from the Tommy John surgery he underwent before the 2022 season began as rehab, but also as an important reset.
Reset, that is, in relation to his future mound goals.
“I truly believe there’s a silver lining to everything,” Crochet told me at the end of the last White Sox homestand. “There’s a lot of stuff I’m able to work on right now I’ve never really had the time to.
“But as far as like a potential role, I feel like this is a good reset for me to become the starting pitcher I wanted to be all along. Just as far as before, they kind of needed me in the bullpen. Now I feel like I almost have a clean slate in a way and have a new way to go through my rehab.”
Crochet, who turned 23 on Tuesday, is missed by the White Sox. He would have been a high-leverage left-handed reliever out of a well-used bullpen, and he would have held down that hybrid reliever/starter role Michael Kopech so capably served in during the 2021 campaign.
Crochet's rehab is split between Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Ariz., and occasional trips to Chicago. He just started bearing weight in his left arm up to 20 pounds, and as that work continues to go well, the weight will slowly be increased. He works Monday through Saturday, lifting three days per week and mixing in three “pretty heavy days of physical therapy.”
The throwing window will begin in September.
“Feeling good, progressing pretty much as expected,” Crochet said. “Everything else is going well as far as the grafting from my hamstring. That’s healed up nicely and I’ve resumed full lower-body activity.
"That was probably the most uncomfortable part of it. All I had to do was not use my arm, but I couldn’t just not use my legs.”
Being away from the team has been pretty awful, according to Crochet, although he's used a slightly more colorful word to describe it. But as he pointed out, that’s just part of the plan.
“I was very lucky to even be a part of the team to begin with, to now have something to miss,” Crochet said. “It’s just where I’m at with it right now, taking the good with the bad. Just excited to get back.”
Crochet’s starter’s mindset involves developing another pitch to go with a four-seam fastball in the high 90s, a slider and his lesser-used changeup. But that pitch development will draw greater focus when he starts throwing. After throwing six innings upon reaching the Majors in his Draft year in 2020 and then throwing 54 1/3 innings in ’21, starting in ’23 might not be initially in the plans as the White Sox build Crochet back. But he has his sights set on the rotation, watching how starters approach games while he’s sidelined, and the White Sox always have believed in his starting potential.
“I feel like I was in a good place before I got injured,” Crochet said. “I don’t feel like I’ll have to restart necessarily. I’ll be able to retain everything I was working on.”