The Boston Red Sox used to rival the New York Yankees when it came to landing the top free agents on the market. Those days are long gone, as the big-market Red Sox rank just 13th in payroll heading into the 2025 MLB season.

Boston isn’t exactly the Miami Marlins or Tampa Bay Rays when it comes to pinching pennies, but it’s clear that the Red Sox are no longer an upper echelon franchise in terms of spending money.

It has been a rather strange deviation for the Sox, but nevertheless, here they are, and it has resulted in palpable frustration among the fan base.

To be fair, the Red Sox did make a push for both Juan Soto and Max Fried during the offseason, but both players signed with New York teams, with Soto joining the Mets and Fried inking a deal with the Yankees.

As a counter to losing out on Fried, Boston swung a trade with the Chicago White Sox to acquire Garrett Crochet, but here’s the catch: Crochet has just two years remaining on his deal, which has Katie Manganelli of BoSox Injection urging the Red Sox to sign the 25-year-old to an extension as soon as possible.

“But now, to make the whiff on Fried and the trade for Crochet worth it, the Red Sox need to sign him to a long-term extension,” Manganelli wrote. “If they can’t get a deal done before Opening Day, Crochet’s self-imposed deadline for negotiations to be completed, he could cost Boston nearly as much as Fried cost New York with another excellent season under his belt.”

But here’s the rub: Crochet has a very checkered injury history and only has one full season as a starter under his belt, which came last year. Yes, the left-hander was brilliant in 2024, pitching to the tune of a 3.58 ERA while racking up 209 strikeouts over 146 innings of work, but he did fade during the second half, logging a 5.12 ERA over 12 starts after the All-Star break.

Is that an indication that Crochet was getting fatigued? Or did the hitters learn him? Either way, it’s something that the Red Sox will need to monitor moving forward, and before they throw big bucks at him, they should probably ensure that he is the real deal first.

Crochet entered the big leagues in 2020 and served as a reliever for the first four years of his career, and he missed all of 2022 due to Tommy John surgery. Heck, he only has 219 innings to his name thus far.

So, yeah: Crochet’s track record is a bit scary, and even though he is immensely talented, the Red Sox must tread carefully.

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