Red Sox make first major move of offseason
Despite an obvious appetite to make a big move, Craig Breslow and the Red Sox missed out on Juan Soto to the Mets, and then missed out on starter Max Fried to the Yankees.
But moving from the free-agent to the trade market, the Red Sox could not be denied on Wednesday afternoon, with starter Garrett Crochet acquired from the White Sox in exchange for four prospects.
In exchange for the lefty, Boston will send top catching prospect Kyle Teel, outfielder Braden Montgomery, infielder Chase Meidroth, and pitcher Wikelman Gonzalez to the White Sox. Teel, drafted with the 14th overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, is the obvious headliner departing from the Red Sox here, and leaves the organization as the 25th-ranked prospect in the MLB Pipeline Top 100.
Montgomery, meanwhile, was the fifth-best prospect in the Boston pipeline, per SoxProspects, while Meidroth ranked eighth and Gonzalez ranked 18th.
Considered one of the top pitchers available on the trade block, the 25-year-old Crochet is coming off a 2024 campaign that included a 6-12 record (means very little on a team as bad as the White Sox) and 3.58 ERA, and was Chicago’s lone rep at the 2024 MLB All-Star Game.
But the big thing with the 6-foot-6 Crochet was his ability to fan batters, with 209 strikeouts in just 146 innings in 2024. Crochet’s 12.9 strikeouts per nine innings would’ve been tops in all of baseball had he pitched enough innings to qualify among starters, but was tops among all starters if you dropped the qualifier down to a minimum of 140 innings.
A power arm, Crochet comes to Boston with two more years of team control, and joins a Red Sox rotation featuring fellow 2024 All-Star starter Tanner Houck, along with Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, and Lucas Giolito.
