‘Receptive’ to idea of contract talks, Garrett Crochet could help White Sox build a winner – and a lot more

Garrett Crochet sure seems to be exactly what the Chicago White Sox need.

He’s a young starting-pitching ace, fresh off proving the baseball world wrong in a stellar first season after making the leap out of the bullpen and to the top of the rotation. Even while limited to basically four-inning outings as the White Sox managed his workload during the season’s second half, Crochet managed an All-Star appearance and finished with the fourth highest strikeout total in the AL, with 209 of them in just 146 innings.

Throw in his development into a clubhouse leader and a strong voice, and Crochet looks ready to assume, if he hasn’t already, face-of-the-franchise status on the South Side.

That is, if the White Sox decide they want to keep him.

A rebuilding team like the White Sox would seem to be searching for a Crochet and conveniently already have one. But timing is everything, so the saying goes, and these White Sox in this moment might deem themselves better positioned for future success by trading him this winter.

It would be wildly frustrating for fans, who are up to their ears in frustration after sitting through a 121-loss season in which Crochet was the lone bright spot. But the argument goes that Crochet, who’s under club control for two more seasons, wouldn’t necessarily be able to help a contending White Sox team during that span as Chris Getz oversees a slow-moving, long-term rebuilding project. Instead, turning Crochet into a fleet of promising prospects would make the White Sox more capable of fielding that contender down the road – and keeping that contender in place with players under control for much longer.

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If it sounds familiar, well, this is exactly what we spent all last offseason talking about, when Dylan Cease found his name in trade rumors for months before Getz turned him into a big league reliever and three prospects – two of which debuted at the major league level in 2024 – in a March trade with the Padres.

And so, with national-reporter types already viewing a Crochet trade as a near certainty, here we go again.

But what does Crochet want? It kind of seems like he wants to stick around.

The staff ace said last week, a day before the White Sox lost their 121st game and set a new modern record for losses in a season, that he’d be open to talking about a contract extension that would keep him on the South Side for a long time, complimenting Getz and the collection of talent that has started to arrive in the big leagues.

“I’d be receptive,” Crochet said. “Those kinds of conversations, they’re not (entirely) reliant on myself. Whatever happens, I know Getz does everything with the team’s best interest in mind. So I think we can trust that to remain true.

“I like the pieces that we have. I like the relationships I’ve developed with this (pitching) staff. I’ve got a lot of trust in Getz, and I think so does everybody in our clubhouse. It’s now just a matter of letting our young guys develop and continue to get reps.

“You can kind of see everything coming together throughout the year as guys started to come up. You saw it from (Drew) Thorpe immediately, you’ve been seeing it from (Jonathan) Cannon all year, for (Davis) Martin to be doing what he’s doing so soon after Tommy John.

“I think you can really see it coming together.”

Crochet, of course, focused his positive assessment of Getz’s rebuild on the starting pitching and the starting pitching alone, an area that has received praise as the organization’s current strength. But it’s past the starting pitching where folks remain skeptical of what Getz is putting together, particularly when it comes to position players, who represent a small percentage of the hope for the future in the fan base.

Turning Crochet into multiple promising position-player prospects? Well, that’s one way to alter those feelings.

And it might be far more likely than it was when Crochet was the most discussed name at the trade deadline. He’s shed any doubts that he can handle a full season of starts, and he won’t have the same condition he did in July, when his camp made it known that any acquiring team would need to extend him if he was going to stretch his first season as a big league starter into October.

Crochet might be willing to hear what the White Sox have to say when it comes to keeping him around for the long term. But do they have anything to say on that front?

Jerry Reinsdorf has made no secret of his distaste for expensive, long-term contracts for pitchers, the kinds of deals that top-of-the-rotation arms command these days. There seems to be a focus on reducing payroll, in general. And there’s the timeline of the White Sox’ rebuild, which could see them giving big paychecks to Crochet in seasons that aren’t expected to feature contending rosters around him.

Asked point blank what Crochet’s future with the White Sox was, Getz sounded far from intent on doing everything it takes to keep Crochet on the South Side.

“It’s tough to answer that right now,” the general manager said last week. “I will say, and I’ve said this many a time, the Garrett Crochet season has been nothing short of excellent. With going into this year and him not making a start since his college days and to make (32 starts this season) just speaks to his effort level, his determination. And I think that’s had a really positive effect on our clubhouse.

“In the reality of the sport, you’ve got to assess where players are at contractually and look for opportunities to help the organization long term.”

Maybe there’s a reason why plenty out there think Crochet is as good as traded.

While the argument for trading Crochet and capitalizing on one of a limited number of opportunities to bring a bunch of talent into the organization isn’t a crazy one, the big lefty still seems like exactly what these White Sox need.

The on-field stuff is apparent to anyone. Crochet went from a relatively inexperienced reliever to the team’s Opening Day starter to an All Star this season and often did it in dominant fashion. He mowed down opposing lineups, racked up strikeouts and proved to everyone that he could handle that somewhat unprecedented leap. Simply put, he was fantastic and looked like a guy who could top a rotation for a long, long time.

“I did want to prove people wrong,” Crochet said of his season. “But I also wanted to prove Getz right, prove Pedro (Grifol) and Grady (Sizemore) right in the regard of (showing that) they made the right decision putting me in this role. Obviously, it was kind of mutual, and we both had an idea that it was going to work out. But to this extent? Maybe not.”

From the start, Crochet’s confidence in himself stood out, and while there were nothing but questions about what he would be able to do in a new role, none of those questions came from the man himself.

That part of his personality carried over into the clubhouse, where Crochet adopted a leadership role and was a focal point for his teammates, someone who the other pitchers gathered around, especially the rookie arms who came up from the minor leagues throughout the season.

“We have such an inexperienced team. I don’t know how many rookies we have on this team. I know it’s double digits. It’s probably over half. So I think it was something that kind of came natural,” Crochet said. “I think when you come up, you look to guys who have the most experience, and it just so happened to be me and a select few others. I’m not really trying to be anything other than who I am.”

Plenty of Getz’s rebuilding project has to do with much more than the 26-man roster, as evidenced by his focus on and changes to behind-the-scenes departments and processes. When he took over the general-manager gig last summer, he discussed a desire to establish an organizational identity that he believed was missing from the White Sox.

While many of Getz’s additions to the major league roster last winter did little to help the White Sox win games, he did make strides in the clubhouse, where a rotten environment last summer that necessitated fixing with midseason trades transformed into a positive atmosphere where even a record-setting number of losses didn’t wipe away the good vibes.

Crochet can take some small amount of credit for that positive atmosphere. And with Getz building toward that identity – a “White Sox way,” if you will – it seems like Crochet would be a nice piece to have around.

“I think it’s hard to pinpoint (what the White Sox’ identity is becoming),” Crochet said. “That kind of thing is something that kind of reveals itself. In the past, we have definitely tried to force that. We tried to force the chemistry in ‘23 and ‘22. This year, we tried to force the ‘play F.A.S.T.’ motto. What we were trying to do with ‘play F.A.S.T.’ was go out there and be Cleveland, and we’re not Cleveland. Though they play a very admirable brand of baseball, that’s just not who we are. We have a different type of player in our organization than they have.

“I always liked in ‘21 — it was a different cast and crew — but I liked how it was kind of the villain role. We kind of owned that everyone hated us, that sort of thing. I suppose since I was drafted to this team, that’s what I had us to be in our mind. The Cubs are probably, in a lot of people’s minds, Chicago’s team, for whatever that’s worth. But I always viewed us as the underdog in that role. I think that’s a great title to take on.”

But Cease, by the time he left, checked a lot of those boxes, too. And now, with a no-hitter under his belt, he’s trying to guide his Padres to the World Series while the White Sox sit at home licking wounds that no other team in the last 124 years has experienced.

Might we be saying the same about Crochet next year, when the Dodgers or Braves or Yankees or some other contending team throws him in Game 1 of a playoff series?

Or will the White Sox go against their own history and find a way to pay a pitcher to stick around? Find a way to make Crochet the pitcher they build around?

We’ve likely got months of trade rumors to sit through before we know the answer to any of those questions. But right now, it seems Crochet could help the White Sox build a winner and a whole lot more on the South Side.

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