White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet spoke to members of the media yesterday, including Bruce Levine of 670 The Score, indicating that he would be open to having contract extension talks this winter. “I would be receptive to conversations,” Crochet said. “Those conversations are not reliant on only myself and what I might want. I know that (GM Chris) Getz does everything with the team’s future in mind. So I think we can trust that to be true.”
It’s perhaps notable that Crochet isn’t immediately shooting down the idea of a long-term deal, but a willingness to have conversations doesn’t necessarily indicate that a deal is likely or even plausible.
Up until this point in his career, Crochet’s earning power has been fairly modest by MLB standards but it is about to shoot up. In 2023, he surpassed three years of service time and therefore qualified for arbitration. However, since he missed significant time while recovering from Tommy John surgery, he was only able to secure himself a slight pay bump. He is making $800K here in 2024, just barely above the $740K league minimum.
But this year, he moved from the bullpen to the rotation with outstanding results. To this point, he has tossed 142 innings over 31 starts. That has come despite the club scaling back his workload in the second half, as he hasn’t thrown more than four innings in an outing since June. He has a 3.68 earned run average on the year and perhaps deserves better. His 35.1% strikeout rate, 5.5% walk rate and 45.1% ground ball rate are all strong numbers. His 18 home runs allowed are the biggest weak point, which is why an ERA estimator like SIERA that normalizes home run rate has him down at 2.54.
The excellent results turned Crochet into a much-discussed trade chip this summer, though his unique circumstances seemingly prevented a deal from being consummated. The White Sox were well out of contention and Crochet was plenty available, but there were questions about what his second half would look like. After being drafted, he was quickly shot up to the majors during the 2020 season and subsequently missed time due to his aforementioned surgery. As such, he had been able to throw just 85 1/3 professional innings over the 2020-23 period.
Though he had flourished as a starter in the first half of 2024, teams were naturally going to wonder how he would hold up if kept in that role during a pennant race and into the postseason. Crochet and his reps reportedly expressed a desire for him to continue starting and secure a contract extension before pitching in October.
Perhaps due to those complications, no trade occurred prior to the deadline, but it’s generally expected that those talks will be revisited this winter. The workload concerns should be less of an issue going forward with the base he established this year. Crochet has two arbitration seasons remaining and it will be difficult for this historically bad White Sox club to return to contention in that timeframe. His salary will leap up from $800K but will still be quite low compared to free agent rates, giving him plenty of surplus trade value. Rather than continuing to run out Crochet to be the best player on a bad team, there’s logic to flipping him for players that can help the club down the line, which Crochet seemingly alluded to in his comments yesterday.
An extension with the White Sox could change that calculus by keeping him around longer, but there are reasons not to expect that to happen. Crochet is only 25 years old, meaning he is currently slated to hit free agency just after his 27th birthday.
Pitchers almost never reach the open market that young, apart from guys coming from international leagues. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was coming over from Japan this past offseason at the age of 25 and had widespread interest, eventually managing to secure a $325MM guarantee from the Dodgers. That kind of spending on a player with no major league experience, plus the $51MM posting fee the Dodgers had to cough up, suggests that the league values that youth highly.
Crochet will be two years older as a free agent that Yamamoto was, but he could have a decent track record in the big leagues by then. There is risk by going year to year, as Crochet could always suffer another injury between now and then, but it would likely take a fairly notable investment to get him to give up that kind of opportunity. In August, MLBTR’s Anthony Franco wrote a piece for Front Office subscribers that looked at some recent pitcher extensions and compared them to Crochet, suggesting that the lefty could get something close to a nine-figure deal.
The White Sox have never given out a guarantee larger than the $75MM they gave to Andrew Benintendi. Given that they are currently at the nadir of a rebuild, it’s probably not the time where they want to be setting new franchise records in that department.
Taking all these factors together, it still seems fair to expect a trade. If the club is interested in a public relations win after so many losses this year, they could consider breaking the bank on Crochet. If they have such thoughts, he is at least willing to answer the phone and talk, but other clubs will also be calling and trying to pry him loose this winter. In comments made a couple of weeks ago, Getz suggested the club would likely be having trade talks involving Crochet this winter.
Old York
I guess they could extend him if he extends on league minimum salary.
roob
The White Sox are probably the only team in baseball that would not be trying their hardest to extend this guy.
They are clearly going to trade him because they continually fail to acquire and develop enough good players any other way. It’s a continual rebuilding roller coaster with that team. Get a few good players and continue to lose so trade them for prospects. Repeat.
Big whiffa
Sign and trade is what he’s open too. He just left the second part out for negotiation tactics
MLB Top 100 Commenter
Having had TJ surgery, if I were him I would be very open to signing a nine figure deal now. Things can only go up for the team. 🙂
Bucket Number Six
Nine figures? Lol. White Sox? Lmao. Reinsdorf? Rofl.
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
I don’t believe you
braveshomer
Are his pants and socks rolled up together?…Is that a thing now lol?
FemboySportsFan!
They re not rolled up together, even then…weird thing to point out.
TGH31
I feel strongly the only reason he is ‘open’ is to buy out last arby years at a premium and maybe give 1 fa year beyond arby.
Bucket Number Six
Mmmm, now I’m thinking of curly fries and horsey sauce.
Dumpster Divin Theo
Spending one’s last years consuming Arby’s. That’s a very grim prospect
terry g
A trade is probably more likely than an extension.
avenger65
Crochet HAS to get off this team! Reinsdorf will never pay him what he’s worth. He’ll never get a shot at the PO. I hope they send him to SD where he would join another former Sox ace in Dylan Cease, or to Baltimore or the Braves would be a good fit with Strider. It won’t take much to get him since Getz wouldn’t know a good prospect if one landed on him.
Fenway 1
I feel like he might turn into the Rendon type once he were paid
Misty Moobs
Triston has BDE!!!!!
raz427
I think a team like Boston should be all over him if they lose out on the Snell sweepstakes. They have a plethora of position players at crucial positions that might help the White Sox rebuild accelerate. . Another team that I would probably consider that Crochet might get traded too is the Mets, especially if they don’t somehow come away with Corbin Burnes. They have some nice position players as well who can help the Sox immediately next year and beyond. Cohen can fit Crochet’s asking price into his payroll/budget regardless of the AAV.
Rsox
No they shouldn’t. Giving up 3 or 4 top prospects for a guy who we don’t even know if he will regress or suffer issues from the extended workload is not ideal for this team right now. The Red Sox need only look at Garrett Whitlock to get an idea of what they may be getting with Crochet
johnsilver
Rsox. Posted yesterday Myself, would be willing to give up *1* of Marcelo Mayer, or Kyle Teel, but not 2 of the top 50 BA top 50 kids Boston has and by that, wouldn’t move Anthony, nor Campbell in any trade..Period.
Believe SP isn’t the black hole it was before with Fitts coming thru as he has, tho the team honestly has no ace and only Houck as a legit #2, the rest (crawford, fitts, Bello) are a mix of mid-back end pieces and like u and myself have posted here? Whitlock is better served as a m/reliever.
Crochet isn’t a legit #1 either and don’t see Boston emptying prospect depth/shocking the masses for anything short of a legit Ace. Myself? Think that comes via FA this winter, if indeed it happens at all, tho we could see another SP come via trade with all the MI depth.
Rsox
Agreed. If they choose to spend on a top of the rotation arm i would probably go for Fried over Snell and bypass the trade market that yeilds little fruit to begin with
nrd1138
Yeah, maybe the Sox can get guys like Moncada and Kopech like they got for Sale.. oh wait…
Rsox
Crochet wants that guaranteed extension now because he probably knows his arm is ready to fall off. Remember he tried to dictate terms by telling prospective trade teams he wanted an extension before he would pitch in October
cwsOverhaul
WSox haven’t been able to develop position players for 25yrs when they do trade Crochet and Robert. They probably would have found a way to make young Bryce Harper just an okay player.
Thefrogsaregey
Younger than skubal. Higher k rate and better secondary stats
FemboySportsFan!
higher K rate? that doesn’t matter when skubal has about 340 more strikeouts than crochet in only 3 more games pitched…skubals WAR is 2x crochets, only a 3 less ERA+ than crochet, his ERA is only 0.02 away from crochets as well.
sooo….what does that have to do with anything? not to mention skubal will win the CY young this year, witch crochet probably wont come close to.
Pads Fans
After exceeding his highest career innings pitched by such a large number and making those ill-advised comments prior to the ASB, the only real question for me is what other team will Crochet be playing for in 2025? But we are talking about Reinsdorf, who rarely makes the intelligent baseball decision.
Again, because of the huge jump in IP I doubt any team will be giving him an extension until they see if that increase has a detrimental effect on his durability.
Warden of the North(acoss13)
Jerry is not opening that pocketbook any time soon. Unfortunately, I don’t think Getz will be able to trade Crochet until the trade deadline next season, to give teams reassurance that there aren’t any lingering issues from this season’s innings workload.
bmann300
Jerry- do something for us suffering White Sox and sign this kid as a sign for the future. You let too many guys go because you are cheap. Crochet., Shultz and Smith are a solid start for a rebuild. Then get some offense.
lilojbone
And Roberts. I’ll risk signing him to an extension.
stymeedone
Wouldn’t you rather have him sign someone with a history of being healthy and having actually played regularly over the last few years? Are you worried that with Eloy and Moncada gone, there will be no one to join Roberts on the IL?
lilojbone
No. I am not worried about him being alone on the IL. He does deserve a smack in the back of his head for his injury history. I believe his injuries reflect his workout routine.
nrd1138
Crochet should be on the White Sox next season, only because of the reported ‘demands’ made by him and his agent Then he can have a full year to pitch with out this stupid 4 inning pitch count the Sox imposed to ‘save’ him (and likely to do it purely for trade value and not his health).
Any other org would likely say pay him in Arb, and either get an extension done or let the chips fall where they may, but the Sox are not that org. They are too cheap and stubborn to change their ways. So they will likely sell him cheap to the first team interested only to get about 2 busts out of the deal.
drewm
Everyone needs a friend in their life who can help them avoid terrible decisions
Fernando Ringworm Jr.
Why lol
Serubian
bring back Ventura to manage. He leaves the starter in for 100 pitches.
mike127
Which means he would be most likely open to extension talks with any potential trade suitors. Not a bad idea to float that out there after the negative publicity he gathered at the trading deadline trying to force some hands.
bbgods
What are the rules for adding an extra player forvthe ATL-NYM doubleheader?
ActionDan
Here’s a great comp for Garrett Crochet.. Doug Fister! Doug Fister suffered through a brutal W-L record with Seattle before being traded to Detroit and being lights out the rest of the season. He had a really good ERA with Seattle with that bad W-L record. He’s a victim of the horrendous White Sox team. They weren’t supposed to be this bad. If they were Chris Getz would’ve put together a better team instead of being forced to pick no higher than 10th in the upcoming draft. They have nothing of value on the team other than Crochet. An unknown coming into the season. He holds all the leverage.
stymeedone
Nah, not a great comp. Fister had been healthy and pitching innings. Also, I don’t recall any demands being made before he was traded.
bravesfan
Duh, he’s a walking injury waiting to happen. Idc how good I am and despite that team be the worst in history, I’d do whatever I can to lock up some money now before that arm breaks, which with his arm angle, it’s gonna happen. Sign a slightly cheaper Strider like deal today
Zerbs63
If he stays there he won’t have to worry about playing in the playoffs so that’s a plus for him.
SewaldSwansonSwoon
Dude continues to act like a loser
Aiden Awe
He’s not a loser. Garrett along with Luis Robert said publicly he wanted to stay with the White Sox.
stymeedone
No player ever says they don’t want to! It smacks of attitude, and more importantly removes a potential bidder.
SupremeZeus
The 78 taxpayer trough might be closed for business, Reinsdorf has to save up for the move to Nashville:) Sell Mortimer sell!!