Addressing The Garrett Crochet Extension...And My Lack Of Making Addresses

Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox. Getty Images.

People have literally been begging me to address this signing: 

Yes, I included my 5:57am response as a not-so-subtle way of letting the people know I start my days early as FUCK and am better than everyone else because of it 

Even though I don't address things anymore. Literally nothing good comes from addressing things, which is why I quit that life cold turkey after heeding Nick Turani's advice to "stop talking on the internet" back in the summer of 2023. 

For instance, if you'd like an example of a real life, tangible person who gets in nothing but trouble for constantly having "takes" and "opinions", look know further than Dante Deiana. His twitter feed is LITTERED with takes, opinions and schools of thought. Scan through it for a few short minutes and you'll see what palpable mental illness looks like in the form is 280 fairly right-leaning characters. 

Feeling I was starting to spiral down a similar path, I stopped caring about literally anything and everything. Perhaps one day I'll pen my care-free existence in the form of a weblog, but to get the basic gist of how I live now, just watch the movie "Office Space" and take specific note of Ron Livingston's character's world view. 

Anywho, I digress. Back to boss' orders. Big Cat has tasked me with a mandate of addressing three (3) things this week…

…and as a company man, I will do as told…even though this will undoubtedly get me in trouble at some point in the future, be that point near or far. Just wait, it'll happen, and when it does, I'm sure Barstool's audience will take great pleasure in watching me squirm while trying to weasel my way out of said mess. 

Blah blah blah. On to my take on the Garrett Crochet signing, with the details of the extension in Cotillo's tweet below: 

By the way - you can get the Red Sox fan's perspective from Big Cat on next week's episode of The Stretch, a Chicago sports podcast that airs bi-weekly on Mondays/Fridays and is hosted by me, the lovably unintelligent WSD, the tinder-butthole-licking Chief, and everyone's favorite svelte Bears fan, Eddie. 

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PROS FOR THE RED SOX: this part is easy - they have an absolute fucking STUD of a starting pitcher controlled for a long time. I mean, look at this freak…

And when I say stud, I mean stud statistically, stud physically, just stud on stud on stud on stud. One of the absolute best talents in the game and he finally found his groove as a pitcher last year. I have no doubt he'll contend for multiple Cy Youngs over the course of this contract. He's that good. 

CONS FOR THE RED SOX: Truthfully, I don't think there are any, but from a non-biased perspective yes, he's had injury problems, yes, he has a funky motion/ throws (really) hard and yes, he needs to do what he did in 2024 over the course of a full season(s). But like… he will. Trust me. I truly think Crochet will not only be better over the duration of this contract than Sale was for Boston over the duration of his, but that he will be one of the best pitchers in baseball. Maybe the best. Period. 

The Red Sox basically just bought out his final arb year, where they woulda paid him like… $7-8MM tops and will now pay him $28.33MM instead. That's the cost of retaining him for what could be WAY below market value for a pitcher of his talent when the extension kicks in. 

PROS/CONS FOR CROCHET: Crochet and his family are now obviously set for generations and he has stability. But if he waited a year, gambled on himself, and duplicated his 2024 season? He'd have made $300MM+ on the free agent market in 2025-26. But like… what's the difference? When you're like $100MM+ rich, can you really get richer??? 

Now here's my "take" on the matter. It's that it doesn't matter. The contract value is WAY less than I would have guessed he would have gotten in an extension, but it doesn't matter in the end. 

Jerry Reinsdorf still owns the White Sox. 

They're going to lose 100+ games this year, they're going to lose 95+ games next year, and then there's going to be an owner vs. owner work stoppage that could threaten the entirety 2027 season. You think Jerry is complementing this core (Montgomery, Schultz, Smith, Teel, Montgomery 2, Quero, etc.) with good free agents prior to that inevitable mess? and I mean GOOD free agents, not Dallas fucking Keuchel?

No fucking shot. That's why I'm having a HORRIBLE time getting excited for the White Sox right now, in spite of their "top 5 farm".  That's why I don't really have any "takes" on the White Sox right now, because they're literally not going to try to win until the inevitable labor dispute gets worked out years down the road.

That's not my opinion or gut writing that, it's history… and if/when that labor dispute shakes itself out, I'd bet the White Sox are looking to flip these current guys for more prospects, thus commencing rebuild #493

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Am I crazy for thinking that?? I don't think so… Prove me the fuck wrong though. 

Their starting pitching looks really good right now and it's not just early season luck. They have legit arms. Whether or not they have legit pitchers remains to be seen, but they undoubtedly have legit arms. It's up to Bannister and Co. to extract the most out of them. Schultz, Smith and Grant Taylor are gonna be here soon. Woulda been pretty sweet to pair Crochet with those guys no…????

That's all I really have to say about that. Stay tuned for address #2 and address #3 that will come later this week.