Crochet, Spring Review and Opening Day 2025 Thoughts
Biggest Stories Since the End of Last Season
1. Red Sox trade for Garrett Crochet
2. Red Sox have yet to extend Garrett Crochet
One of the major hesitations about trading for Crochet was the combination of trade cost and, logically, an immediate contract extension. When the deal was made, the trade package was heavy, but lighter than expected. There was considerable smoke that both sides were very open to getting a contract worked out. That question started to linger through the winter, with Crochet eventually making statements such as, “Part of me wants to see what I could do in a full season before, I suppose, locking myself into a certain bracket of player.” Warning flags were hoisted soon after. An extension deadline was set for Opening Day. Crochet looked like an absolute monster throughout spring training. Now, less than 24 hours before the opener, all indications are that a deal will not be reached.
I’ll wait about a week into the season before letting serious frustration set in, but not figuring this out would be a major organizational demerit on this offseason.
In January, I made a tongue-in-cheek comment about how not signing Crochet now would flip the narrative to which trade window the Red Sox will eventually shop him in. If this isn’t resolved, that’s going to happen a lot sooner than people think. I know, not fun to think about, but this winter has made clear to me that people love hearing the 10,000-foot view about the team when things are rough, but you can see brighter days ahead, but they really, really hate the 10,000-foot view when the vibes are high and there are some hints of trouble on the horizon.
All indications are Max Fried was the Red Sox top pitching target this winter, and Corbin Burnes revealed last week the Red Sox were a finalist and among the top bidders for him, too. At some point the team needs to pay an elite starting pitcher, it has to be Crochet, and should be now.
3. Red Sox sign Alex Bregman, play him at 3B
The flip from “the Red Sox are only on the periphery / talking for months about him being a potential gold glove second baseman” to “holy shit the Red Sox gave Bregman $140M* / he’s expected to play second base… no wait, he’s playing 3B” is one of the weirder pivots I can remember. I would love to know what went on behind the scenes. It kind of feels like not only were they negotiating with Scott Boras, but maybe they were negotiating within the organization on what would happen if they did extend themselves to get the player.
*Really $35M in 2024, $5M bonus due Jan. 15, 2028, and basically two years of $40M insurance for Bregman if he doesn’t have a big bounce-back year this season. Not to mention, his yearly salaries are heavily deferred until 2035-46.
Spring Training
Intertwined with the Bregman and Raffy Devers switcheroo is Kristian Campbell being awarded the second base job. Hard to make that move if the transition is for an average player or average prospect. David Hamilton drastically outperformed Campbell this spring, but it didn’t matter. Campbell hit .167/.305/.271 with 31% strikeouts over 59 plate appearances, but was still showing a good eye, and by the last week of camp was hitting the ball with more authority. The transition to MLB has been a months-long process for guys like Jackson Chourio and Jackson Merrill, so the leash needs to be long during the inevitable rocky times.
Bregman was good at the plate this spring, and hitting for power. Jarren Duran struggled and told the Boston Globe he was already putting pressure on himself to continue off of last year’s success, but has relaxed with the guidance of coaches. Triston Casas had an unspectacular spring, while showing a lot of patience at the plate. On the other hand, Trevor Story didn’t draw a walk in his 47 trips, but hit .333/.340/.578. Ceddanne Rafaela’s 14% BB and 9% K look real nice, and broadcasters talked up his discipline all month, but this seems like the most obvious let’s wait and see potential improvement. Marcelo Mayer was probably the star of camp, hitting .333/.455/.528 while showing off his lighting bat speed and effortless defense. I’m sure the accounts that were talking crazy with prospect fatigue with him have changed their tunes already.
Crochet had just about the best spring training possible. Richard Fitts showed up with a couple extra MPH and some new pitches and looked great, but still curious to see how he generates K’s in-season. Walker Buehler looked solid, but there are reports that his non-public data wasn’t great. Going to need to see what that looks like this week. Sean Newcomb pitched well and won a job while Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito, and Kutter Crawford get healthy, but on the flip side it’s disappointing that Quinn Priester couldn’t capitalize the opportunity. Tanner Houck was rocked, unable to generate whiffs or strikeouts, while getting beat up to the tune of 29 H and 17 ER over 13.2 IP. I’m not overly concerned yet, at least until we start seeing his pitch data, but it should be noted his 24% K, 6% BB first half last year slid to 16% K, 8% BB in the second half.
Odds and Ends
Fairly anxious about the bullpen. Aroldis Chapman can be dominant, and erratic, but I think he was an easy choice to be named closer out of the gate. Liam Hendriks looked rough, he’s 36-years-old and hasn’t seriously pitched in years, so not sure what to expect. Going to need to see what it looks like when he’s pitching with adrenaline. Might be 50/50 odds between him having a good year and being DFA before June. Justin Slaten would be my pick if I had to predict who finished with the most saves, and I know they are planning on Garrett Whitlock in a multi-inning role to start, but with the way he’s being hyped up, he may be a sneaky long-term closer option. Looking forward to seeing how much his whiff rates rebound in the pen.
Not only did Connor Wong not get replaced this winter, he got a new catching coach and the Top 50 catching prospect behind him traded away. It’s quietly one of the big things to watch early in the year. If his defense hasn’t improved, and if he’s not raking, I wonder how long they’d wait before going all-in on defense with Carlos Narvaez.
This lineup would have been made so much better with Masataka Yoshida’s bat in it. No idea what the plan is here, it seems they are just kicking the can down the road with his 20 days rehab in Worcester, seeing if things untangle themselves somehow.
I think Trevor Story is either going to ball out and opt-out, or he’s not going to be good enough to stand in the way of Mayer going forward, and they’ll need to figure something else out. I don’t see much middle ground here.
I’m guessing it’ll be fine…. but I thought Story and Bregman played some very shaky defense this spring. Not sure why Story’s arm would have regressed, so it’ll be interesting to see those defensive metrics as they become available.
Devers batting second and Casas cleanup was the slam dunk decision of the year, not sure where those reports otherwhile came from last month, but Cora knows what he’s doing.
Can’t go this whole thing without mentioning Roman Anthony, who is hopefully busting down the door to Fenway soon. He had a fairly quiet spring, was very disciplined at the plate, and finished with 52% ground balls. 46% grounders in AA last year, 51% in AAA. This is going to be the fix that takes him to superstardom, we’ll see how long it takes the still-20-year-old.
Fangraphs has the Red Sox projected win total at 85, online sports books have their over/under at 86.5, Baseball Prospectus has them at 80 wins and last in the AL East. It seems like most of the guesses I’ve heard recently are 91-93. I’ll go with a vanilla 90, and some pretty wide error bars.
With all the talk of Duran’s projections being less than exciting, I’m not too worried. 6.7 fWAR is unlikely to be repeated, but I can’t see a 3 WAR dip coming either. He did play 810 innings in center field last year, which is unlikely to be repeated unless Rafaela nosedives, so that’ll knock him down a bit. We’ll see if he can run a .345 BABIP again, or if he starts trading some of that for more balls in the air and power.
Devers and Casas each with 35 home runs?