Signing any pitcher to a long-term deal always carries with it an element of risk, which is why the Garrett Crochet extension is so interesting. The Red Sox could win big. But they could also come quickly to regret their largesse.
The Sox announced this week that they have extended Crochet for six seasons at a cost of $170 million. Crochet came to Boston this winter in a trade with Chicago (AL), where he had a 3.58 ERA in 32 starts spanning 146 innings.
Crochet is entering his age-27 season, so he is just now coming into his physical prime. At the same time, "physical prime" is a dicey proposition for pitchers given their proclivity to break down.
Garrett Crochet is worth the money... for now
It’s also worth noting that 2024 was Crochet‘s first season in which he generated starter-level numbers. He was a reliever in 2021 and 2023, working a total of just 67 innings, and missed all of 2022 with an arm injury.
The Tommy John surgery that cost Crochet all of 2022 and part of 2023 may be read as a blessing, if you believe that pitchers who come back from it are stronger for the experience. The broad data is mixed on that.
There’s certainly no indication the surgery cost Crochet velocity; if anything, the opposite has been true. Baseball Savant pegs his four-seamer at 97.2 mph, about one mile per hour faster than before his surgery.
But it remains a fair question how well young starters of great promise – like Crochet -- tend to hold up over time. Recent history argues that giving a young stud pitcher a big long-term deal is inherently a very high-stakes proposition.
In 2019, there were 21 starters who met three criteria that are basic to gauging the risk inherent in giving long-term deals to promising young arms. These are the criteria:
1. They were under age 30.
2. They had ERAs under 4.00.
3. They pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.
Of those 21, only six were still producing full-time seasons with ERAs under 4.00 in 2024.
Setting aside the 2020 Covid-shortened season, the average ERA+ of these 21 pitchers for the five-season period between 2019 and 2024 was just 110.8, on a scale where 100 equals league average. Eleven of the 19 suffered through two or more seasons in which they either didn’t pitch at all or pitched just a handful of innings.
First, the good news. The table below shows the six pitchers under age-30 in 2019 with sub-4.00 ERAs and sufficient innings to qualify for the ERA title. Listed are their average 2019-to-2024 ERA+ scores as well as the number of non-Covid seasons between 2019 and 2024 in which they failed to meet those standards.
Pitcher | Avg. ERA+ | Bad years |
|---|---|---|
Luis Castillo | 122 | 0 |
Gerrit Cole | 143 | 0 |
Jack Flaherty | 116 | 2 |
Sonny Gray | 133 | 0 |
Aaron Nola | 109 | 0 |
Zack Wheeler | 134 | 0 |
The performance of these six pitchers over an extended five-season period proves that it is at least possible for a talented young starter to be worth the gamble involved in a long-term deal.
But it is still a gamble. Walker Buehler, three years younger in 2019 than Crochet is now, was the talk of baseball when he went 14-4 with a 3.26 ERA across 182 innings as a 24-year-old. But, since then, Buehler has missed all of 2023 and much of 2024 recovering from arm injuries, and has won just seven games since 2022.
Lucas Giolito was a 24-year-old phenom for the White Sox when he produced a 3.49 ERA in 29 starts in 2019. But he was limited by injury to 21 starts in 2023 and missed all of 2024. The data tells much the same story about Shane Bieber, about Sandy Alcantara, about Mike Soroka, and so on.
The data on hotshot young stud pitchers looks too enticing to pass up… until a ligament pops, and with it, expectations.
That’s the gamble the Red Sox are undertaking as they go long-term for big money with Crochet. They are gambling that they will get the next Gerrit Cole or Zack Wheeler.
Statistically, however, the likelihood is greater that they get the next Patrick Corbin, Dakota Hudson, Walker Buehler, Shane Bieber, Julio Teheran or Anthony DeSclafani. In 2019, all of them looked like sure-fire stars. Today, they are a collection of restoration projects and has-beens.
That’s the way pitching works in the big leagues these days.