The Boston Red Sox have acquired LHP Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for a haul of prospects according to reports.
The deal, which is still pending physicals, is believed to include Catcher Kyle Teel, outfielder Braden Montgomery, infielder Chase Meidroth and right-hander Wikelman Gonzalez. Neither team has officially announced the trade as of yet, but it is believed to be a “done deal”.
While the deal is a steep price to pay in terms of the prospects given up, Boston fans will take solace in knowing that they didn’t need to part ways with any of their established MLB pieces, or any of their top 3 rated prospects according to MLB Pipeline (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kristian Campbell).
Acquiring Crochet provides a bit more balance to Boston’s starting rotation as well which, until Wednesday, featured only RHP heading into spring training. The 25 year old southpaw was perhaps the lone bright spot for an historically bad White Sox team in 2024. Crochet recorded 209 strikeouts across 146 innings, en route to an All-Star appearance and an AL Comeback Player of the Year award in 2024.
He will also be a cost effective starter for Boston as well, with a $3M salary in 2025, and not becoming a free agent until 2026 at the earliest. He’ll now join a rotation that’s likely to feature a combination of Tanner Houck, Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, and Kutter Crawford.
It will be interesting to see where Boston ends up in their pursuit of SP Corbin Burnes. The former Orioles ace was previously linked to Beantown, until it emerged that recent talks had intensified with Toronto and San Francisco. It remains to be seen whether the Red Sox front office pivoted to Crochet as a result of that development, or whether their focus was on getting the deal across the finish line and will now resume their pursuit of Burnes in earnest.
Free agent infielder Alex Bregman has also been linked to the club in recent days as well.
Photo: Jens Goetzke. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.