The Boston Red Sox and Craig Breslow ultimately playing the Alex Bregman sweepstakes to perfection this offseason undeniably took the pressure off of the front office. Yes, the Rafael Devers drama is unfortunate, but this is a winning baseball team miles ahead of where they've been in recent years. And yet, Garrett Crochet is already turning up the heat yet again.
Crochet, who as the crown jewel of the Red Sox offseason after being acquired around the Winter Meetings in a blockbuster deal with the Chicago White Sox, arrived with the expectation of being the team's ace. However, he also arrived with only two years of club control remaining. That meant that Breslow's ability to work out an extension with the young flame-throwing southpaw was always going to be a storyline for spring training.
On Sunday afternoon in Fort Myers, Crochet made his debut at JetBlue Park and with the Red Sox. And his albeit brief efforts are only going to bring extension talks further to the forefront — and for good reason.
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Garrett Crochet puts immediate pressure on Red Sox for extension
Crochet's Red Sox spring training debut lasted 1.2 innings with the lefty facing eight batters, recording four outs, allowing no runs, striking out four and surrendering a walk. A run was saved on a Cedanne Rafaela throw to the plate from centerfield, though one could argue the Sox should've been out of the inning if David Hamilton had made a good play at second base. The same is true of Trevor Story at second base, who could've ended the inning had he made a play on a weak ground ball hit off of what could've been Crochet's final pitch of the outing.
On the whole, though, Crochet showed early on when he's not even supposed to be at peak performance why Boston was willing to give up two Top 100 MLB prospects to get the young ace. His stuff is elite and oftentimes outmatches just about any opposing hitter. And the Blue Jays, even with a spring training lineup, saw every bit of that.
This isn't about overreacting to one spring training outing, though. This is about what's to come. Again, Crochet is still working his way into shape to ultimately start Opening Day for the Red Sox. He's not at his top level of performance. And he's already striking out 50% of the batters he faced and looking dominant.
The longer that Breslow and the Red Sox wait to get Crochet locked up to an extension, the higher the price tag goes — and there's already a good chance that the price is already high itself. If he only gets more dominant and builds on what he did with Chicago last season, an extension then becomes less likely.
Of course, Boston has risk to mitigate as well with Crochet having only pitched limited innings as a starter and with a Tommy John surgery already in his past. That's worth considering but, at the same time, that only gives them more reason to strike before the southpaw has fully proven himself in terms of getting a deal done.
Crochet can be the future of this Red Sox rotation. He has that talent and the early signs are wholly positive, without question. And yet, after just one look at him in spring training, the pressure should be back on Breslow to make this A-graded offseason bump up to an A-plus, which is what an extension would surely accomplish.