Garrett Crochet and the Red Sox in agreement on a six year extension
Craig Breslow and his front office did exactly what they set out to do upon acquiring Garrett Crochet via trade over the offseason, and locked him down to a mult-year deal. It was reported Monday night by Jeff Passan on Twitter/X that Crochet had inked the six year extension with the Red Sox. Crochet was one of the premier pitchers on the trade market over the winter after the White Sox made him available to teams, and Crochet just so happened to be the ace the Red Sox desperately needed. Crochet had already expressed his desire to sign a long-term extension with whichever team he was traded too, and given the amount of prospect capital Boston gave up to acquire him, it was only a matter of time that this deal was going to be made.
Crochet was one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2024 and comes into the 2025 season as an American League Cy Young favorite for many baseball fans. On a rate basis, Crochet was arguably the best pitcher in baseball last year. He didn’t throw enough innings (146.0) to qualify as a starter, but found himself ranked in the top ten in multiple major pitching categories. Despite his lack of volume, he still finished seventh among pitchers in fWAR (4.7). He finished fourth in FIP (2.69) and led all pitchers in K% (35.1) and K-BB% (29.6), minimum 130 innings.
As does any long-term contract, this extension comes with some risk. Crochet has what it takes to be one of the best pitchers in the game, but the Red Sox are really only betting on one season’s worth of starts for Crochet. He came up in 2020, but wasn’t stretched out into a starter until just last year. Prior to 2024, the 2021 season was his only full season as a reliever as he missed all of 2022 and a large portion of 2023 due to injury. His 146 innings in 2024 were a career high, so there’s an obvious question mark around how he holds up over multiple seasons of an ace’s workload - not just a starter’s workload. In terms of overall value, Crochet will be the eighth highest paid pitcher in the game while he will be the sixth highest pitcher by average annual value ($28.3 million). With those types of dollar amounts, it will be expected of Crochet to throw upwards of 180+ innings annually along with big postseason performances.
While the extension comes with risk, it of course comes with a lot of upside as well. It’s already been noted how good Crochet was as a starter last year, and if he continues to improve, this can actually become quite the bargain for the Red Sox. Blake Snell, Jacob DeGrom, Corbin Burnes, Gerrit Cole, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are the five pitchers with a higher overall and average annual value on their respective contracts than Crochet, and it can be argued that Crochet will produce the most value on a rate basis during his contract when compared to these other deals.
