Starter Spotlight: Arm The Trebu-Crochet

7-12-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

A Trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a rotating arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile, not too dissimilar to the motion and impact of a bat driving a ball over the fence. For a team who has been leading MLB this month in home runs, you REALLY want to take advantage of that this weekend.

The Pirates have three games standing between them and the All Star Break as they will face the absolute WORST team in MLB this weekend but with one of the best starting pitchers in LHP Garrett Crochet.

In all of baseball, Crochet has the highest fWAR at 3.7, the highest K/9 at 12.47, best xERA at 2.47 and best K-BB rate at 29.3%. That’s a LOT of crazy numbers for an arm who threw 73 MLB innings since 2020 coming into this season. Is it starting to wear down?

His most recent start against the Miami Marlins, Crochet was only able to work 4 innings, allowing 2 runs off 5 hits with 3 walks and 5 strikeouts – his shortest start since April 19 and only the third time this season he walked as many as 3 batters.

The Southside Southpaw primarily works off his high-90s 4-seam which can touch 100 at times and low-90s cutter that has been just unhittable – ranking with the highest run value among all starting pitchers and only behind Guardians closer, Emmanuel Clase.

His fastball has been even better, functioning as his strikeout pitch with 72 of his 146 punch-outs coming off the 4-seam and opponents batting just .189 against the offering when the do make contact.

Paired with those pitches is a mid-80s slider, which breaks down and away from righties, and a less frequent low-90s changeup running down and in against opposing batters.

All four offerings have been weapons for the hard-throwing lefty this season. There’s no sugar-coating it because this might be the toughest starter the Pirates have faced this season – and he pitches best at home with – 2.38 ERA over 64.1 innings at home versus 4.17 through 41 frames outside of Guaranteed Rate Field.

The team should try to work counts as deep as they can against Crochet early and watch for the high heat and low cutters. The slider has resulted in 5 of Crochet’s 10 home runs this season but it’s tough to stay on the heat without being ahead on the breaking stuff.

Big challenge today for the Buccos entering the series in Chicago. Get Crochet out early and go to work against a bullpen with the 4th worst ERA (4.55) in MLB.

Let’s Go Bucs!