The Boston Red Sox made a few huge moves over the offseason. One of the biggest moves was the blockbuster trade for starting pitcher Garrett Crochet. Crochet was moved from the Chicago White Sox to Boston in a deal that sent multiple top prospects back to the Windy City.
The Red Sox only brought in Crochet because they were near certain that they could re-sign him to a new contract before he hit free agency in a few years. After pitching just one time in Boston and making just 33 big league starts, the Red Sox inked Crochet to a new six-year, $170 million contract extension. This is quite the massive deal when you consider he still had another few years of arbitration left on his contract.
Just about everybody is happy in this situation. Except for Pittsburgh Pirates owner Bob Nutting.
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Garrett Crochet's extension is bad news for Bob Nutting and the Pirates
Why are Nutting and the Pirates not happy with this contract extension?
Because they're eventually going to have to try to re-sign or extend Paul Skenes and this contract only drives up Skenes' eventual price tag.
There aren't many pitchers in the league who are better and more deserving of a big contract than Crochet. But Skenes is one of the pitchers who is.
If Crochet can land a deal like this with multiple years of arbitration left after only making 33 big league starts, Skenes' price tag is nearly incomprehensible at this point.
To put things into perspective, the Pirates' righty will likely have over 100 starts on his resume by the time the Pirates realistically talk contract extensions. If the beginning of the righty's career is indicative of how the next few years will go, he could have a career ERA well below 3.50 at that point, potentially below a 3.00. Seeing a generational pitcher like this talk extension numbers would be a situation for teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, not the Pirates.
Nutting is likely not very happy with Crochet's extension. But there's also a chance that he never had any sort of intention to attempt to re-sign Skenes anyway. He's the cheapest owner in baseball, so I wouldn't put it past him to already consider Skenes a goner.