Garrett Crochet laid out possible benefit to getting extension with Red Sox completed before Opening Day
"I want to give everything I have to this season and not have to worry about potential implications that happen in the long term."
When Garrett Crochet arrived at Fort Myers for the start of spring training, he seemed pretty open to the possibility of playing the 2025 season without an extension in place to potentially up his value. But Crochet had a bit of a different tune in his most recent comments about a possible extension.
The Red Sox lefty weighed the benefits of having an extension in place and how it could help him achieve what he wants to achieve in 2025 in an interview with the “Section 10” podcast.
“For me and my personality, as soon as I was traded over here, I want this to be a place where I can run myself into the ground. No regards for the rest of my career,” Crochet said. “I want to give everything I have to this season and not have to worry about potential implications that happen in the long term. That’s just the kind of guy I am. I wanna leave it all out there on the field any time I make a start.”
Prior to getting traded to the Red Sox in December, Crochet was one of the top players available ahead of the trade deadline last July. However, he threw a wrench in his own trade market when he demanded to have an extension in place with whatever team he was traded to or else he wouldn’t pitch in the postseason.
So, Crochet’s comment aligns with what he wanted last summer. However, he also didn’t make that demand when he was traded this offseason. Both Crochet and Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow have stated on multiple occasions that they’d be interested in getting an extension done this offseason, but the All-Star pitcher teased the idea of playing the season out earlier in February.
“There’s always pros and cons to everything,” Crochet told reporters on Feb. 13. “I think that the long-term security is definitely something attractive. As players, we like to look out for our family first. But with last year being my first taste of starting, part of me also wants to see what I could do with the full season of innings workload.
“Part of me wants to see what I could do in a full season before, I suppose, locking myself into a certain bracket of player.”
As Crochet has offered differing views on getting an extension done, he shared on “Section 10” that a deal has “got to work for both sides.” He also said that he looks “forward to having those conversations,” a possible indication that there hasn’t been much dialogue yet between the two sides on a long-term deal.
Still, Crochet is under team control for two more years, so getting a deal done ahead of Opening Day isn’t imperative. But the former White Sox pitcher is also in a place where he wants to be after getting traded in December.
“That’s a lot of the conversations I had leading up to the trade with my agent,” Crochet told “Section 10.” “I hoped to land in a situation like this because as a kid you grow up watching professional baseball. Now that I’m in it, the AL East is the highest of highs in professional baseball. You could argue NL West, but we won’t get into it.”
Crochet pitched for a White Sox team that was historically uncompetitive in 2024. They went 41-121, posting the worst record in a 162-game season in MLB history.
While the White Sox struggled, Crochet certainly didn’t. He went 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA, 1.068 WHIP, and 209 strikeouts over 146 innings pitched in 32 starts with Chicago last season.
As the 25-year-old Crochet mentioned, last season was just his first as a full-time starter. Coming off Tommy John surgery two seasons prior, Crochet was also limited in his usage in the second half of the season. He never pitched more than four innings in an outing over the last three months of the year, with the White Sox being cautious about his arm.
The Red Sox haven’t stated a plan yet on how they’ll use Crochet through the course of the season. As he mentioned, an extension would presumably allow him to pitch more free rein. But he’s also happy to be pitching in more competitive games this season.
“I’m excited,” Crochet said about going up against the AL East. “Every team is competitive and fielding a strong bunch. I look forward to those matchups two to three times a month at this rate.”
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