Today’s Comps for Tomorrow’s Aces: Part 3

For many of us, our fantasy baseball seasons are effectively over. It wasn’t our year. But instead of sulking, something many of us do so well is to immediately turn to draft prep and the next season.

In doing that, part of the process is looking back at the season to see some of the emerging young players and ascertain whether or not their emergence was real and repeatable. One of the classic ways to do this is by looking for comparisons of these young players to established major leaguers to serve as proof of concepts. 

Scouts have done this forever and it has worked in the recent past. Hunter Brown’s association to Justin Verlander foreshadowed the former’s rise to ace status. Many in the industry connected Parker Messick’s arsenal and style of pitching with Hyun Jin Ryu, and Messick has had similar results so far. Chase Burns’ reliance on the fastball and slider was compared to a young Spencer Strider’s prior to the former’s debut, and Burns has been just as good as the vintage version of Strider. 

Over the course of the next few months, I’ll provide a handful of starting potentially instructive comps we can make to help illuminate this growing crop of young starting pitchers.

Part 1: Max Fried & Kade Anderson

Part 2: Sandy Alcantara & Walbert Ureña

Today, I’ll compare Garrett Crochet and Payton Tolle, a comparison I think captures the ceiling case for Tolle to be drafted as a top-15 starting pitcher in drafts in 2027. 

I believe that Tolle in 2026 is having a more polished version of Crochet’s 2024 season with the White Sox, reaching a similar innings level, experimenting with new pitches, and finding lots of success against major league hitters.

Garrett Crochet & Payton Tolle 

At first blush, the best comp for Payton Tolle may actually be fellow youngster Cam Schlittler. Both are 6’6 aces with cherry red Savant pages topping AL East playoff rotations. And both throw almost exclusively fastballs, mixing four-seams, sinkers, and cutters, with a smattering of curveballs.

Of course, only Tolle is left-handed, mustached, and known for his warm and fuzzy side. 

But being left-handed is what separates Tolle the most, and makes him the hardest to find a strong comparison for. 

There are 114 starting pitchers with 100 or more innings in the majors this season. Only 34 are left-handed. Only 10 have a four-seamer with a Stuff+ of at least 100. And only one throws all three fastball varieties with a Stuff+ of 100 or better. Trevor Rogers. But Rogers is not the blueprint for Tolle. Rogers throws sits at 93 mph and relies more on depth of arsenal than overpowering fastballs, though the sub-30 degree arm angle he utilizes is close to Tolle’s. 

Carlos Rodón provides another interesting comparison for Tolle, especially earlier in the former’s career. The Rodón you see today comes after a decade of pitching in the majors, polished like sea glass in the tumult of competition. 

But back in 2016, the then-White Sox prospect was hurling wipe out sliders to go with a plus fastball and sinker, at least in terms of velocity. But unlike Tolle, he couldn’t find success with his heaters. 

That is, until 2022, when a stint with the Giants saw his career revitalized. That was when Rodón’s fastball velocities and locations ratcheted upwards. Tolle has already unlocked what Pitcher List’s Nick Pollack refers to as the “Blake Snell Blueprint:” being “north-south” instead of “east-west” with pitches, pepping the top of the zone with four-seamers and keeping secondaries low. This is something Rodón finally found in 2022 and that Tolle has found as a rookie, commanding with precision rarely found in 23-year-old hurlers.

But Rodón’s success with his fastball has been fleeting. Tolle’s rookie command allows for dreaming on a higher ceiling. The better comparison comes from Tolle’s own dugout, he just hasn’t pitched much this season. 

You may not be able to conjure Garrett Crochet’s arsenal in your mind’s eye given his injury-riddled 2026 has produced only 30 innings. But it closely mirrors Tolle’s.

That’s Crochet’s 2025 on the left; Tolle’s 2026 on the right.

Another 6’6 southpaw, Crochet threw a four-seam, cutter, and sinker last season, each at least 16% of the time and each with a Stuff+ of 100 or better. And while Crochet is known for a signature sweeper, as opposed to Tolle’s curveball, both serve similar functions. Both are side dishes for fastballs that are well executed with high velocity. 

They throw challenge fastballs. Hitters may be able to guess right on the pitch type and location, but it’s still a tough pitch to catch up to. Watch each of them throw fastballs past Bobby Witt Jr., one of baseball’s toughest stars to strike out over the last few seasons. 

Both feature high leg kicks, whipping low arm angles, and high velocity up in the zone. They have remarkably similar heaters. And they both use the four-seamer as their strikeout fastball. 

Tolle’s four-seam has actually been the better pitch.

One of the biggest differences between the ace version of Crochet and rookie Tolle has been how deep they each go into their starts. Crochet averaged more than 6.4 innings per start last season. Tolle has averaged 5.7 innings per start this season. But there’s potential for Tolle to make this leap heading into his age-24 season, making him even more of a points league asset and quality start league workhorse. 

In 2025, Crochet went deep into games thanks in large part to poor results against his sinker, especially in hitters’ counts. He allowed a .252 wOBAcon when he ended ABs where he was behind in the count with sinkers. This helped him dance out of trouble, evidenced by an 84.3% LOB% overall. 

This offseason, Tolle added a sinker of his own, and it’s become a key piece in his arsenal. Find the purple line below, representing Tolle’s sinker. This new pitch has become a true third fastball, giving him an arm side offering that runs in hard on lefty hitters.

Tolle locates his sinker effectively, with a 106 Location+ this season, but hasn’t had Crochet’s luck. And despite a 109 Location+ for Crochet last season on the sinker, luck does seem to tell at least part of the story.

The bigger piece of Crochet’s success was his ability to get ahead and to put hitters away when he did. It’s an ability that Tolle has shown this season, too.

Whether it’s a cutter inside to a righty or a front hip sinker to a lefty, both pitchers have demonstrated clear plans of attack and the ability to execute.  

Both pitchers, despite the exceptional movement and velocity they possess, throw a lot of strikes early in the count and get plenty of chase and whiffs late in the count. It helps them both run low walk rates to go along with high strikeout rates.

For both, while late count fastballs did lead to strikeouts, their breaking balls are their nastiest put away pitches.

Despite being listed as a curveball and sweeper for Tolle and Crochet, respectively, they are not as distinct based on their characteristics and movement profile. Both pitches have plenty of drop and dive in and under right-handed hitters’ hands. Check out these backfoot breaking balls from Crochet and Tolle, and notice the similarly late break and not-quite-curve-or-sweeper shape. 

For both pitchers, their breaking balls have atypical levels of drop given their arm angles, spin rates, and velocities, according to Baseball Savant. If Tolle can unleash his curveball more often in two strike counts, it would bring his mix closer to Crochet’s and, potentially could bring his K% up around 30% with Crochet. Tolle already got more whiffs, more strikes, more strikeouts, and greater miss distances with his breaking offering, relative to Crochet’s. But it did get hit harder, presenting an area of growth for the rookie gunslinger. 

Though Tolle hasn’t used the pitch as often as Crochet overall, he has been closer to that 16% mark in the latter part of his season, indicating a growing comfort level with not just his sinker, as demonstrated earlier, but also with his curveball. 

As I mentioned at the top, I think that Tolle’s 2026 season feels a lot like Crochet’s 2024 season. Both were inexperienced at the major league level, tinkering with a new pitch, which was the sinker for both of them. They both handled around 140 innings of a traditional starter’s workload. And they both clearly dominated big league hitters, fighting back when the league adjusted.

I think Tolle’s 2027 has a chance to rival Crochet’s 2025.

Tolle has demonstrated success with the sinker, which had better expected stats in his first season throwing it than Crochet had in his second year with the pitch. Tolle’s command is already just as strong as Crochet’s was in his peak season and he actually gets more chase, though he has yet to convert that into Crochet’s 30% strikeout rate. And importantly, Tolle has had more success with his four seam fastball as a strikeout pitch than Crochet, while wielding a similarly devastating breaking ball. 

Tolle is likely going to be one of the first two starters used by the Red Sox in the opening round of the playoffs, making him the youngest since Babe Ruth for the Sox in 1918. That graphic is sure to make the rounds once his role is confirmed. And regardless, one great playoff start will certainly sit in the minds of managers all offseason, just as Schlittler’s dominant eight innings against the Red Sox did last season (sorry Connelly Early fans). That turned out just fine.

The sky is the limit for this burly lumberjack, with a syrupy sweet disposition and eclectic interview answers. Boston fans will be behind him. Fantasy managers should follow suit.