Garrett Crochet plans to pause extension talks with Red Sox by a certain date
Crochet is under team control for two more seasons.
Garrett Crochet has reiterated again that he wouldn’t mind getting an extension done with the Red Sox in the near future, but he’s ready to pause talks soon.
The Red Sox left-handed pitcher has set an Opening Day deadline to get an extension done or he won’t speak with the team about a possible deal again until the offseason.
“For me personally, once the season starts, I would like for whatever conversations are currently being had to be placed on the back burner until the following offseason,” Crochet told The Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier. “We have a big season ahead of us and we’re trying to do a lot of special things. I don’t want to be a distraction for the team in any way and I myself don’t want to be distracted by having to answer these kinds of questions in the media.”
Crochet’s stance isn’t uncommon among players across all professional sports. For instance, Xander Bogaerts set a soft deadline to get an extension done with the Red Sox on Opening Day in the 2022 season.
But Crochet’s latest comments on an extension strike a bit of a different tune than what he’s said in the past about a possible deal. When he spoke with reporters at Fenway Fest in January, Crochet said that he wouldn’t be distracted by contract talks bleeding into the season because his agent handles the negotiations.
More recently, Crochet told the “Section 10” podcast that he wouldn’t mind getting a deal done so he could maximize his output in 2025.
“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 being traded to the Red Sox, Crochet had also placed an extension demand when he was on the market ahead of the 2024 trade deadline. He had informed interested teams that he wouldn’t pitch in the postseason without an extension in place, hurting his market and causing him to remain with the White Sox for the rest of the year.
Crochet explained his decision last season as a sensible move for a pitcher who wanted long-term security.
“I’m actually glad that you asked because I know when it came out a lot of people were looking [at it] as greedy,” Crochet told Rob Bradford on a recent episode of the “Baseball isn’t Boring” podcast. “I didn’t, by no means, feel like I was demanding it because I wanted money or security by itself. It was more so in the fact that I was establishing myself as a starter and kind of getting away from the idea that teams viewed me as a potential high-end reliever.”
The 25-year-old Crochet is still under team control through the end of the 2026 season, so the Red Sox would have all of next winter to get a deal done before he becomes eligible for free agency in the following offseason. But it would probably be ideal for them not to have to sweat out that possible scenario with a pitcher as talented as Crochet. 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, his first full year as a starting pitcher.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow is interested in getting an extension done with Crochet and believes there should be money there to get it done.
“When there is an opportunity that makes sense for the Red Sox, we have the support of ownership. We saw that this offseason where [Alex Bregman, who was signed to a three-year, $120 million deal] was a guy who fits us particularly well,” Breslow told Speier. “This wasn’t just kind of, ‘Do you get a thumbs up or a thumbs down from ownership,’ but actually engagement and excitement and enthusiasm to go out and to be aggressive.
“I think if there are opportunities to keep players that we identify as cornerstones of a run of success in a Red Sox uniform, that will be greeted with the same enthusiasm.”
The Red Sox open the 2025 season against the Rangers in Arlington on March 27, giving them less than three weeks to get an extension done with Crochet.
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