Payton Tolle and Power Rankings
Payton Tolle has seemingly been out ahead of the curve. Take, for instance, his Halloween costume from six years ago.
The then-high schooler dressed up as the television character Thomas Magnum, played by the actor Tom Selleck the 1980's television series, "Magnum P.I."
"It was an easy costume," Tolle said on the Baseball Isn't Boring podcast. "Khaki shorts, very high. Nice Hawaiian shirts. I didn’t have a Tigers hat at the time, but I wore some vintage hat. I was in a group with high schoolers, and they thought I was some tacky tourist, so I had to explain to them, “Magnum P.I. …"
As it turns out, it was all preparation for when it counted the most—workshopping for when the real thing was needed, living life as a major leaguer with a real-life mustache.
"Tom (Selleck) was definitely the inspiration for this," Tolle said, referencing his now-signature facial hair.
It started with the inspiration. Now it's the opportunity. Tolle is getting to break out his real-life mustache on a real-life major league mound against another mustachioed major league pitcher, Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes.
But preparation will only go so far in these sorts of situations. Just ask another man with a mustache, Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet.
Crochet lived the life Tolle is about to experience, having your first big league experience being in the middle of a postseason run. For the lefty, it was without a single minor-league outing, having been called up to the White Sox the same year he was drafted during the Covid chaos in 2020.
Crochet entered the big leagues at the age of 21 years and 89 days, living the life as a reliever. He pitched in five regular-season games before coming out of the bullpen once during Chicago's postseason.
Tolle is 22 years and 301 days old, and does have almost a full season of minor league experience under his belt. But the parallels are close enough that it would behoove the Red Sox rookie to heed the advice of his new teammate.
"I didn’t really receive any advice at the time," Crochet said. "Going back, I kind of wish I had a different mindset on it. I set a lot of goals when I was drafted about doing exactly what I did, so for me it was a lot about proving it to myself and doing a lot of things for myself. Now, when I see what we’re asking these kids to do, to come in and be part of our team and be part of what we’ve been doing for the last five months … I feel the feel the best way to do that is similar to what Roman (Anthony) and Marcelo (Mayer) and KC (Kristian Campbell) were doing. It felt immediately that they were ingraining themselves into the fabric of the team and doing stuff with the team. It didn’t matter that they were rookies and could get sent down. They were going to be confident who they were. Hanging out with the guys. Talking ball as much as they could. For myself, I took the wrong approach. Very isolated.
"There’s a lot of fear. Fear of failure. The age gap and experience gap I felt with my peers. But the kids today, you can’t make it up, but everybody comes in - and I don’t know if it’s for better or worse - there’s a sense of comfort and self-confidence that you can’t fabricate. Guys come up and they know what they do well. Like Roman. He’s taking his walks and swinging at the right pitches in the first two weeks of his career. His batting average sucked at the time, but he was like, ‘No, this is what I do well. I have the right process.’ Something about being process-oriented seems to be ingrained in our developmental system because all the kids we call up are doing it."
It's what the Red Sox are counting on heading into this experience with Tolle.
The 2024 second-round pick has done his part on the mound, primarily dominating with a 97 mph fastball that plays up thanks to next-level extension. It's also a package that looks the part, standing at 6-foot-6, 250 pounds, just as was the case with Crochet five years before.
As the current Sox ace discovered as a wide-eyed rookie in 2020, the real thing will hit different. Real mustache. Real major league hitters. The real deal. No more costumes.
"When I look back at it, I was a product of a very fortunate circumstance," Crochet said. "Me being able to do that, it just happened to line up with what the team as doing. I was throwing 100 mph in my bullpens. I was newly-drafted. I was kind of the new shiny thing that also just happened to be performing well at the alternate sight. They were like, ‘This could work.’ Then I went up and it was working."