From the college diamond in Knoxville, to the 11th pick in the draft, to a lightning-quick debut, a trip to the operating table for a new elbow ligament, a hopeless situation with Major League Baseball’s worst team and finally, a trade that united his elite stuff with a team that could do something with it, Crochet has seen some things in his baseball career.
So when he took the mound Wednesday night at Camden Yards, barely a day after agreeing to a six-year, $170 million contract extension with the Boston Red Sox, Crochet enjoyed a freedom so unfamiliar that he couldn’t place the most recent time he felt it.
“I can’t think of the last time I played baseball for pride,” Crochet said after dominating a very good Baltimore Orioles lineup in a 3-0 conquest, his first win as a Red Sox. “In college, you’re playing to get drafted. Once you’re in the big leagues, you’re playing to stay in the big leagues.
“To have the security and feel like I’m playing to truly just win ballgames, it takes a lot of the riff-raff out of it.”
And suddenly, the skies on the horizon are looking very bright for Crochet and the Red Sox.
Sure, they’ve won just two of their first six games – both wins started by Crochet – but the events of the past 48 hours further cemented the Red Sox’s newfound aggression of playing both for now and the future, of procuring good players, putting their faith in them and then rewarding them with long-term security.
First, Crochet: With nearly two full years before free agency, the Red Sox and his representatives agreed on a six-year, $170 million extension Monday night, with a chance to opt out after the 2030 season.
Then, second baseman Kristian Campbell: He’s been a major leaguer for just six games but on Wednesday agreed to an eight-year, $60 million contract that gives him some cash up front and ties him to Boston through at least 2032, with two club options that can raise the value to $96 million.
All that comes on the heels of the bold trade that landed Crochet from the 121-loss Chicago White Sox, followed by the early-spring signing of Alex Bregman to a three-year, $120 million deal. The quick strikes come after five years of stasis, a span that roughly began with the unthinkable trade of Mookie Betts and flattened out after the past three years produced two 78-84 seasons and last year’s 81-81 campaign.
All the while, they lost championship stalwarts like Xander Bogaerts and Nathan Eovaldi, and become an utter non-destination, never really in the running for Japanese stars like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Rōki Sasaki, and just courtesy players in the big-time Juan Soto sweepstakes.
Now?
Well, they’re not quite the Sox who won three championships in 10 years from 2004-2013 while sporting a payroll that typically ran second only to the Yankees. But the days of trying to cobble a playoff winner out of a 26-man aggregate of mediocrity are over, with general manager Craig Breslow committed to deploying the young talent his predecessor, Chaim Bloom, accrued while supplementing aggressively in the trade and free agent markets.
“It’s important. It’s huge,” says Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who led the club to a 2018 World Series title but had just one playoff squad in the years since.
“I told Bres congratulations, because it’s not easy. It takes two to tango, right? We’ve been able to secure some guys in this organization now that are going to be huge for us. It’s a good business decision, a good business model, too.
“Hopefully, we can continue that and secure more players.”
But the biggest get is already in place.
‘He’s a big boy’
At 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds, there’s really only one figure Crochet can cut on a mound: He’s freaking intimidating.
That elite extension on the mound that produces a 97 mph fastball and a deceptive delivery prompted the White Sox to draft him 11th overall in 2020, and bring him to the majors as a reliever a few months later in that pandemic-shortened season.
But Tommy John surgery would soon follow, wiping out his 2022 season, and when he came back, he was still dabbling in the bullpen, until the White Sox threw him in the rotation to start 2024.
Wise move.
Crochet made the All-Star Game and was a walking trade rumor thereafter, Chicago eventually pulling him off the market since suitors weren’t exactly sure what he could offer down the stretch in his first full year as a starter.
Yet Crochet was the biggest trade prize of the winter and Boston paid a premium to get him, with a package centered on elite catching prospect Kyle Teel and recent first-round pick Braden Montgomery.
They’d have Crochet for two seasons, but with one major surgery behind him and a desire to stay in Boston, team and player sniffed each other out for most of the spring. A comfort level was achieved. An Opening Day deadline to land an extension was set.
The sides were close. As Crochet readied for his second consecutive opening-day start, and first as a Red Sox, there was a growing sensation the sides might reach an accord.
It was a done deal by Crochet’s second turn through the rotation.
“There was really good dialogue leading up to Opening Day which made us feel pushing past the deadline was the right call,” says Crochet. “Becoming comfortable in a new organization is something that doesn’t come naturally.
“Once we got over to Fort Myers (in spring training), I think it really did. It came very organically and something me and my wife were really excited for.”
In Crochet’s first start as a University of Tennessee freshman, he pitched eight innings. He hadn’t seen the eighth inning as a starter since, at least until Wednesday.
That’s when Crochet subdued the Orioles so thoroughly, Cora went against his usual early-season instincts and let Crochet pitch the eighth inning after needing just 82 pitches to get through seven innings.
He’d need just 10 pitches to finish his masterpiece: Eight innings, four hits, eight strikeouts and one walk, retiring 11 in a row at that point.
This was like nothing Boston had seen since Chris Sale pitched them to the 2018 Series title.
“It’s electric. It’s on the attack, always,” says shortstop Trevor Story of the view from his infield perch. “Even the way he comes out on the mound, he’s a big boy and he’s coming right at you.”
It was the greatest game on Crochet’s resume, a sample size that’s small yet portends devastation for future opponents.
In 34 career starts beginning with 2024 Opening Day, he has 221 strikeouts to just 36 walks, a 3.40 ERA and nearly 13 strikeouts per nine innings. He did not pitch to his expectations in the 2025 opener at Texas.
Wednesday was different.
“It wasn’t so much the contract as much as my first one not going the way I wanted,” he says. “I felt like I was pitching on my heels.
“Today was more of a statement to myself: Who do I want to be this year? Who am I as a pitcher and a person? Someone who could be in the zone and win or lose with their best stuff.”
Meanwhile, the Red Sox are gathering forces around him.
A quick learner, a quicker payday
Like Crochet, Campbell’s agents were making progress on a long-term extension during the club’s trip to Texas. Yet this was so different: Campbell, 22, spent his spring training simply hoping to make the team and was less than two years removed from getting drafted in the fourth round out of Georgia Tech.
Yet he has so impressed the Red Sox both in skill level and his uncanny ability to improve that it basically went like this: You’re our second baseman. How about you stick around the next decade?
“It means a lot. They developed me from Day One,” Campbell said Wednesday, a couple hours after the contract was finalized. “As soon as I got drafted, they’ve been working with me every day. I’ve learned something new every day. They’ve helped me become the player I am today. So it means a lot to me that I’m with the Red Sox for a long time.
“It definitely is crazy. But it’s amazing. My family is very excited. They developed me. They put their trust in me.”
Yet Campbell gave them plenty of reasons for that faith.
Training with the Red Sox’s hitting group has increased his maximum exit velocity from 106 mph at Georgia Tech to 113. Diligent training with weighted bats cranked his bat speed up to an average of 74.4 mph, in the 85th percentile of all major leaguers in this early part of the year.
The results have matched the metrics.
He has three multi-hit games in his last five, doubling twice on Wednesday, and has a team-leading eight hits in six games. Meanwhile, he’s drawn rave reviews from Red Sox veterans and Cora for his work at second base, showing off-the-chart growth across spring training, which began with him on the backfields with Cora, the old middle infielder showing the kid how to move around the second base bag.
“Think about everything that was going on – trying to make a team, and then all this (contract) stuff happened,” says Cora. “It’s not easy. His teammates – he calls them friends, actually – have helped him to slow it down and we’re very happy he’s going to be a part of this. “
A visual learner, Cora calls Campbell. A burgeoning baseball genius, his teammates say.
“He does so many things really well on the baseball field,” says Bregman, who can opt out of his contract after this season. “He’s only going to get better. Obviously, he’s young but he has a very advanced knowledge of the strike zone, swings at good pitches to hit.
“He hits the ball really hard. He’s continuing to get better ever since the first day I’ve seen him. From talking to people around the organization, that’s the way it’s been since he’s gotten here.”
Says Story: “It feels like he doubles every time.”
Campbell was part of the Red Sox’s big four of prospects, with Teel used as Crochet trade bait, outfielder Roman Anthony expected to be the best of the bunch and shortstop Marcelo Mayer lurking should any injuries befall the infield.
Yet it’s the overall organizational commitment that portends particularly good things.
‘That’s the reason he’s here’
Perhaps Crochet will be remembered as the pied piper of a Boston renaissance.
It was his acquisition that signaled the Red Sox meant business. Then, they showed Bregman the money when he festered on the free agent market, and very well could try re-upping him on a longer term come winter.
And now, certainty with Crochet.
“We’re in a good spot,” says Cora. “When you start getting deals like that, it means a lot – not only for the players but the fan base, right?
Along with potential acquisitions down the road.
“It shows again how willing ownership is to try and win. It’s exciting,” says Bregman. “You want to be in an organization that wants to win. They’ve proven that, obviously this offseason and now early in the season as well.
“Now it’s up to us to go win some games.”
Every fifth day, their odds should be outstanding.
“That’s the reason he’s here. That’s the reason we committed to him,” says Cora. “He’s a big guy. He has a presence out there. But he knows how to pitch.”
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