Red Sox almost definitely won't play the waiting game with Garrett Crochet

The promise of Craig Breslow and the Boston Red Sox still making another big move — or just making a move at all — remains very much at the forefront of this offseason. However, the front office still deserves immense credit for orchestrating one of the biggest blockbuster trades of the offseason, landing emerging left-handed ace Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox.

Crochet is the frontline potential long-term ace that the Red Sox were lacking. At just 25 years old and in his first season as a starter, the southpaw was downright dominant, posting a minuscule 2.69 FIP behind his 3.58 ERA (speaking to the awful Chicago defense behind him). More importantly, his swing-and-miss stuff is electric and, frankly, something that Boston was lacking. In 146.0 innings in 2024, Crochet fanned an absurd 209 batters. He's that good.

However, the big conversation with Crochet once you get beyond his ace potential for Boston in the immediate is the future. The Red Sox traded away two Top 100 prospects in baseball in addition to two more prospects in the Top 20 of their own farm system to get Crochet with two years of club control on his deal. That only makes sense if the lefty can be locked in long term.

The big question with that, however, has been timing. Do the Red Sox wait until in-season to try and get a deal or, more risky, wait until next winter? Apparently Boston isn't intent on doing either of those things based on the latest rumors around Crochet and the organization.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB offseason.

Red Sox sound like Garrett Crochet extension will be done sooner rather than later

Red Sox insider Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe ($) reported on Monday that he expects that deal to happen quite soon, perhaps even before spring training kicks into gear in a couple of months.

"Don’t be surprised if Garrett Crochet gets a contract extension before spring training or shortly after. The longer the Sox wait, the more likely the price goes up. That trade only makes sense if Crochet is locked up well beyond the two years he has before free agency."

Abraham pretty succinctly laid out the best path forward for the Red Sox when it comes to Crochet. If the organization believes in him enough to make this trade — and to have reportedly been in on him for almost a year at this point — then it behooves them to get the extension done now. Letting him play out this season before signing him puts Boston at risk of that deal ballooning in size or, even worse, Crochet wanting to hit the open market more than signing a new deal.

One interesting note from Crochet's introduction to Boston was that he maintained his primary focus was his first season with a new club. That's a cookie-cutter answer but it's also one that seems dubious at best. After all, who could forget the trade deadline when Crochet was a potential candidate to move but with the caveat that he wanted an extension before he'd pitch with any team he was traded to. That type of sentiment doesn't just evaporate now that a trade was made in the offseason.

So all told, it appears the motivation for both sides is to get a contract extension done as quickly as possible. We've seen the Red Sox in previous regimes work to make that happen as well when it comes to new acquistions, and that history plus the current situation suggests we're trending toward that place again. That will be a huge sigh of relief for fans in Boston — especially if it's accompanied by more offseason acquisitions.