Craig Breslow acknowledges ‘risk’ involved with Garrett Crochet’s contract

Red Sox

“This is the type of bet that we are excited to make.”

It’s hard to ignore Garrett Crochet’s stuff on the mound.

The 25-year-old lefty’s knack for punching out batters with a blistering fastball, biting cutter, and elusive sweeper was the primary reason why Boston decided to hand its new ace a six-year, $170 million contract extension this week. 

But even if Crochet’s new deal isn’t as hefty as some of the other mega-deals doled out in recent years like Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12 years, $325 million), Gerrit Cole (nine years, $324 million), and Corbin Burnes (six years, $210 million), there’s still some risk involved with Crochet’s new deal. 

While every contract extension represents a gamble when it comes a player’s health, Crochet’s potential is also undercut by a lack of proven reps as a big-league starter. 

Entering his second career start with Boston on Wednesday against the Orioles, Crochet has only logged 151 innings as a big-league starter between the White Sox and Red Sox. 

For Craig Breslow and a Red Sox franchise in desperate need of an elite starter, banking on Crochet’s potential stood as a gamble worth taking in order to build up the team’s core moving forward. 

“There’s always risk associated with these types of contracts,” chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said Tuesday via Zoom to reporters, including MassLive’s Chris Smith. “I think we recognize that. At the same time we’re talking about an elite starting pitcher who’s 25 years old and someone we believe will continue to develop and whose best days are ahead of him.”  

Even if Crochet’s resume at the big-league level is far from extensive, the case could be made that the Red Sox are committing to a pitcher with little wear and tear on his body at this stage of his career.

Despite undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2022, Crochet has not been significantly sidelined by other major procedures over the last few seasons, with the southpaw only at 224 totaling innings in the MLB. 

“We’re looking not just at what he has done but what we believe he’s going to be able to do,” Breslow said. “And when you couple the talent with just the commitment to being the best pitcher he possibly can, this is the type of bet that we are excited to make.”

Crochet made his first start in a Red Sox uniform on Thursday against the Rangers, recording five innings of work and allowing two runs with two walks and four strikeouts in Boston’s 5-2 win.

Even though Crochet noted on several occasions this spring that he was going to table contract talks with Boston until next offseason if they couldn’t agree to a new deal by Opening Day, Breslow was relieved that they were able to cross the finish line — even if it was struck days after that self-imposed line in the sand.

“I was thinking that there was a decent probability that we were going to need to pick up these conversations next offseason,” Breslow said. “Fortunately, I think we both recognized that there could be common ground here and it wouldn’t take a ton given all of the legwork that had been created.

“And so in the end, we were able to get this over the line in a way that came together pretty quickly.”

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