White Sox’ deadline dilemma: To trade Garrett Crochet or not?

The Chicago White Sox sure seem to be steaming toward an “everything must go” sale.

Whether that means finding deals involving no-brainer trade candidates like Tommy Pham and Erick Fedde or tougher-to-part-with guys like Luis Robert Jr. and Garrett Crochet, it figures that Chris Getz could be willing to part with any player, as long as the other teams “regularly peppering” him with phone calls meet his asking prices.

But even though it might make plenty of sense that anyone could depart the big league roster – regardless of how much control the White Sox have – as Getz embarks on what looks to be another lengthy rebuilding project on the South Side, it stands to wonder whether there maybe should be an “untouchable” or two.

For instance, with every start he makes, fans are going to have a tougher time with the idea of saying goodbye to Crochet, who looks like a bona fide ace in the making.

“When you look at his stuff, his age, his mentality,” Fedde told CHGO on Wednesday, “he’s a top-10 guy I’d start my franchise around.”

The big left-hander was quality again in the White Sox’ loss to the Astros on Wednesday night. That the three runs he allowed in six innings seemed somewhat disappointing speaks to just how excellent he’s been in most of his outings.

“I think we’re all getting pretty spoiled with him,” Pedro Grifol said after the game, “looking at a six-inning, three-run outing like atypical of his outings. It’s a really good outing.

“It’s really not surprising to me because he’s a really smart kid, but how fast he’s picked up the starting game is pretty remarkable. … He understands how to economize pitches and how to minimize damage. To me, that’s remarkable, considering the lack of experience he has as a starter. So what he’s doing this year is spectacular in my eyes. And today he had a quality start, gave us a chance to win.”

Even on a less-than-spectacular evening, Crochet showed that he’s someone the White Sox shouldn’t want to give away. And yet, Crochet’s name is being bandied about as much as anyone’s as the worst team in baseball approaches selling season.

Getz raised some eyebrows Tuesday when, during his half-hour media session, he brought up the notion of dealing away Crochet unprompted, responding to a question about what he learned from the process of trading Dylan Cease to the Padres in March.

“Being that Dylan was an attractive player to so many different organizations, I do believe it gave us a head start in regards to knowing organizations, whether that applies to Garrett or anyone else,” Getz said. “Having such a valuable player like Dylan in my first offseason as a general manager has allowed me to build relationships with other general managers and get to know other organizations. So I do feel like we’re well positioned when we feel like the time is right.

“When it comes to Garrett, more than anything, we’re focused on helping him navigate this season. He’s just getting his career started as a starting pitcher, and he’s proven to baseball and the world that he’s one of the best in the game. I think I can speak to any fan out there that when they know he’s on the mound, whether it be our team or any other team, your club has a good chance to win.

“We’re continuing to figure out what’s best for the organization in regards to Garrett, but primarily we’re focused on getting his start tomorrow and continuing to map out the rest of the year.”

Obviously, Getz won’t part with an asset like Crochet unless another team meets what could be a steep asking price – at least it will be steep if Crochet keeps pitching like this.

But why should he part with Crochet at all?

Crochet has forcefully answered the many preseason questions surrounding his ability to make the jump from a relatively inexperienced reliever to a starter capable of shouldering a significant workload. He’s looked dominant on a regular basis, something his explosion into the big leagues at the end of the 2020 season potentially forecasted, but he’s been able to do that on a consistent basis.

While racking up strikeouts – he leads the AL with 124 of them after K’ing eight Astros on Wednesday – and hardly walking anybody, he’s also managed to blow past his previous career high in innings pitched with seemingly no ill physical effects. The ample confidence he displayed when talking about his transition during the spring has shown up time and time again throughout the season’s first three months, and he carries himself as someone who has been doing this job for a long time, even though he hasn’t.

Along the way, he has impressed those who have.

“I think the biggest thing is his ability to control the zone. The lack of walking guys when you have that kind of swing-and-miss stuff is more impressive, just because a hitter’s going to go up there and try to be a little more picky because they know it’s going to be a hard time hitting,” Fedde said. “That’s so impressive.

“He’s working his butt off. That’s the most important stuff, the stuff you don’t see in between (starts), especially when it comes to throwing 150, 180 innings. The team’s been doing good to try to give him extra days when they can. And he’s been working hard, staying on top of his shoulder care, his lifting. And everything he’s doing preparation-wise with hitters, I think that matters, as well, when you’re having cleaner innings, rather than laboring.

“Just overall, big picture, he’s doing a great job of putting himself in a position to throw all year.”

Of course, Getz’s calculus when it comes to possibly moving Crochet has to include not just whether Crochet can do this for the entirety of this season but for the next several seasons. The White Sox have Crochet under club control for two years after this one, and with what he’s shown, he’s giving the impression that he could be a top-of-the-rotation starter for years to come.

“I don’t think there’s anything I can think of that can’t make him a No. 1 for the rest of his career,” Grifol said before Wednesday’s game. “Strong-minded, winner, team-first mentality, talent, work ethic, character, integrity. This guy’s not only a great baseball player, a great pitcher, but a great person and a great teammate. He’s a guy you want to be in a foxhole with, for sure.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can actually point at that you can say, ‘This is not an attribute or an intangible of a No. 1 starter.’ There’s nothing that I can think of. Everything he’s got, his whole makeup, his whole arsenal, everything he’s got just screams No. 1 for a long, long time.”

So with all those rave reviews and the forecasts of Crochet dominating opposing lineups well into the future, why wouldn’t the White Sox just hold onto him?

Well, as the saying goes, timing is everything.

Getz is just starting this latest White Sox rebuild, and keeping Crochet for two more years in which the team could still be waiting to ascend to contender status would be somewhat wasteful. Crochet might not be able to contribute to a contending White Sox team if a contending White Sox team doesn’t materialize during the remaining years on his contract.

Similarly, Getz could have a rare opportunity with Crochet to bring more talent into the organization, talent that could speed up the currently non-specific timetable of when the team could be competitive again. Getz already capitalized on such an opportunity with Cease in March, and even though Robert has three more years of club control after this one, the All-Star center fielder could provide a similarly rare opportunity to cash in and add a lot of young talent that could help the White Sox in the long term.

But at the same time, it’s true that Crochet — and Robert, for that matter, even more so — is the kind of player that any rebuilding team would covet: young, talented and capable of being productive not just now but far into the future.

Trading Crochet with the hopes of acquiring another Crochet seems kind of counter-intuitive, right?

But talent costs money in the major leagues, and if Getz is uncertain at this point in time that his project would yield a contender in the next two or three years, keeping Crochet around would require a contract extension, one of the few topics Getz chose to avoid speaking on Tuesday.

“More than anything, it’s just helping him navigate this season, putting him in position for future success,” Getz said when asked if the White Sox have considered an extension for Crochet. “I know he’s focused on that, and that’s where the organization is at, as well.”

Wait until Crochet hits free agency with hopes of re-signing him, and the situation could get even trickier, given the White Sox’ reputation for an unwillingness to spend big on pitching, something Jerry Reinsdorf approached confirming during his media session last summer, when he said, with some hyperbole added in, “We’re not going to sign pitchers to 10-year deals.”

And so the timing might just not be right for the White Sox to hang on someone blossoming into one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Whether Crochet ends up getting dealt before the end of July obviously remains to be seen, and it wouldn’t shock to spend the next several weeks hearing his name in trade rumors. Should more specific ones pop up than what we’ve heard so far – the general discussion of a possible Crochet trade, like this – Getz might have to step in and let Crochet know what’s going on.

“We’re nearing the trade deadline, and there’s certainly been a lot of interest on our players,” Getz said Tuesday. “There’s times where I’ll pull a player aside, and I know they’re reading, or their family’s reading, some of the rumors that are out there. And I try to be as up front as I can and let them know whether there’s truth to it or not, just so we can put them in a good position to have a successful night.”

But Crochet hasn’t been pulled aside yet, or so he said Wednesday.

“I haven’t had any conversations about it, to be honest,” he said.

Of course, it didn’t stop him from having a successful night.

And because he’s already had so many successful nights, he could find himself pitching elsewhere before the end of July, as crazy as that might seem.

[MORE SOX: When will White Sox contend again? Chris Getz rebuilds as trade deadline nears]

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