As intriguing as Garrett Whitlock is for the Red Sox right now, his future is almost more of a storyline.
The 24-year-old has become one of the most intriguing rookies in Major League Baseball, kicking off his big league career by throwing 13 1/3 shutout innings, striking out 18 and walking just two.
Considering this was a player who hadn't pitched above Double A, underwent Tommy John surgery and proceeded to land with the Red Sox via the Rule 5 Draft -- (meaning the Sox would have to send him back to the Yankees if he didn't stay on the major league roster) -- Whitlock's emergence was hardly expected.
And while he has settled into the role as valued multiple-inning reliever or the time being, the prospects of this version of Whitlock entering into the starting rotation in 2022 has been a welcome conversation. He did, after all, serve as a starter in 38 of his 42 minor-league appearances before this season.
Appearing on the Greg Hill Show Thursday morning, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom explained how the organization views Whitlock's future, hinting that a return to starting at some point is a very real possibility.
"Down the road, when we took the guy in the Rule 5 we took him because we liked him as a starting pitching prospect," Bloom said. "You recognize when you do something like that in the Rule 5 you’re skipping some steps. That’s how you acquire a player like that. In this case, you’re taking a guy coming off Tommy John rehab who has never pitched above Double A. Now, he has exceeded anything we could have reasonably expected coming out of the shoot, so he has earned himself more a consequential role. Obviously you saw the confidence in bringing him in a one-run game last night. But I think that upside to start long-term is still there. There is a lot of things to manage right now and some of that is making sure we’re doing right by him and not putting too much on him too soon, both in terms of the role and also in terms of physically what is responsible to do with someone coming off Tommy John surgery who hasn’t pitched in the big leagues before.
"I think we may see there is a lot of different directions this can go. I don’t know if that we know all the twists and turns the season is going to take, but the role he played last night, the role he is in right now, that’s going to be really, really important for us. I think obviously its helpful to have really good starting pitching. We know what good short relief does for you at the end of the game. Over the course of a season, especially this season coming off a short year that we had last year, having guys who can go multiple innings who you trust in close games, that can be big for a staff. I think you’ll as the summer goes on a lot of the teams that are having success are going to be doing it because they will have guys like that. I think that’s a really good place for Garrett to be right now, where he can go multiple innings and he has earned the right to do that in close games and we’ll see how that evolves from there. But we love his upside for the future."
To listen to the entire interview, click here.