BALTIMORE — When the Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet, they imagined a front-of-the-rotation force with a chance to helm the starters for at least the next two years preceding free agency — and possibly many beyond that. On Tuesday, the team reached an agreement with the lefthander to ensure the “beyond that” possibility became a reality.
According to major league sources, Crochet, a 25-year-old who posted one of the highest strikeout rates of all time by a starting pitcher in 2024, agreed with the Red Sox on a six-year, $170 million deal that runs from 2026-31 and includes a player opt-out after the 2030 season. The deal does not include any deferred money.
If Crochet opts out of the final year, he’d be leaving roughly $30 million on the table to pursue the open market following his age-31 season. He’ll be slightly older than Max Fried when he signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the Yankees that included the largest guarantee for a lefty in history.
Crochet positioned himself as one of the elite pitchers after moving from the White Sox bullpen to their rotation last season. He went 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA along with an eye-popping 35 percent strikeout rate, making him one of nine starters ever to reach that plateau in a season of at least 100 innings.
He features a dazzling pitch mix — a fastball that sits in the upper-90s and will cross into triple digits, a nasty low-90s cutter, a swing-and-miss sweeper, as well as a sinker and changeup. For someone with four years of big league service time, he’s relatively inexperienced, having thrown just 224 innings because of the early relief role and injuries. He’ll be the first pitcher ever to sign a deal for at least $100 million before throwing at least 800 innings in either MLB or Japan’s NPB.
That inexperience is a double-edged sword. On one hand, Crochet has a shorter track record than most starters who would be considered for a nine-figure extension. At the same time, his relatively limitedstarting experience suggests a pitcher with considerable room for growth, something that appealed to the Red Sox when they traded four prospects (headlined by catcher Kyle Teel and outfielder Braden Montgomery) to the White Sox for Crochet in December.
“His ability, his stuff, is just so good,” Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said this spring. “I think there’s strong reason to believe that, because he just recently made the transition back to a starter, that he’s still got development in front of him, and he’s still got additional upside.”
Crochet had said during spring training that he wanted to resolve any negotiations about a potential extension before Opening Day. But there was enough progress toward a deal that the pitcher and his representatives kept the door open, resulting in the agreement in the first week of the season.
The $170 million total value of the deal represents the second-largest guarantee ever given by the Sox to a pitcher, trailing only the $217 million, seven-year deal to which David Price was signed before the 2016 season. The Crochet deal’s $28.33 million average annual value is likewise the second-largest conferred by the Sox upon a pitcher.
The deal represents the largest guarantee in major league history to a pitcher with four-plus years of service time, surpassing the five-year, $137.5 million standard set by Jacob deGrom and the Mets (a deal that included heavy deferrals).
In his Red Sox debut on Opening Day, Crochet overcame some early control difficulties to log five innings and allow two runs in the club’s only win to this point. The Sox saw the outing as a building block — evidently, not just for 2025, but for seasons to come. His second start comes Wednesday when the Sox and Orioles continue their series at Camden Yards.
Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report the agreement between Crochet and the Red Sox on an extension.
Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @alexspeier.
