Craig Breslow talks Garrett Crochet extension
BALTIMORE - When the clock turned midnight and Craig Breslow found himself officially living life on Opening Day of the 2025 season, there was an assumption: Garrett Crochet's contract extension talks would have to now most likely wait until after the next six or seven months.
The next day, Crochet echoed that reality when talking to WEEI.com. He did offer some intrigue, however, when revealing how close the two sides had come heading into his self-imposed deadline for discussions.
"It was fairly down to the wire," he said.
A few days later, both sides had unexpected crossed the finish line, with Crochet agreeing to a six-year, $170 million extension.
So, what happened? It turns out that the taste left in those final moments Wednesday night were too good to totally turn away from.
"We obviously have been engaged in conversations throughout the winter. I think both sides have been outspoken about that," Breslow said on a media conference call. "There were times through the offseason where we felt like maybe a deal was within sight, and then others where we felt like it would be most productive to table talks. Going into Opening Day, Garrett had talked about not wanting conversations around an extension to be a distraction. We wanted to honor that, but also felt like, as an organization, we needed to put our heads on our pillows at night feeling like we did everything we possibly could to keep this guy in a Red Sox uniform for as long as possible. And if that hadn't been the case, then we needed to re-engage. And so, this all I guess in some respects came together very, very quickly, because we approached, we came and passed through Opening Day without a deal in place. But at the same time, so many conversations had laid the foundation for this."
The Red Sox chief baseball officer added, "It’s hard, because you don’t really know how close you are until you see where things end up. I guess in retrospect, we were close, and I appreciate their side acknowledging that. But at the same time, I can remember you asking me on Opening Day, ‘Like, I'm not going to read about an extension tomorrow?’ At that time, that was true. And I was thinking that there was a decent probability that we were going to need to need to pick up these conversations next offseason. Fortunately, I think we both recognized that there could be common ground here, and it wouldn't take a ton, given all of the legwork that had been created. And so in the end, you know, we were able to get this over the line in a way that came together pretty quickly."
Prioritizing getting a deal done with Crochet was no secret from the Red Sox side of things. They had allocated significant resources to secure the 25-year-old, giving up two of the top prospects in baseball in Braden Montgomery and Kyle Teel, along with potential major leaguers Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez.
And while there might have been some room for interpretation when it came to how sizable Crochet's extension should be considering he has spent just one season as a full-time starter, Breslow was willing to make sure he didn't surrender those package of players just for two years of control from the lefty hurler.
"There’s always risk associated with these types of contracts," he said. "I think we recognize that. At the same time, we're talking about an elite starting pitcher who's 25 years old, and someone we believe will continue to develop and whose best days are ahead of him. Depending on the perspective, he could have only 146 starting pitched innings under his belt. We're looking not just at what he has done, but what we believe he's going to be able to do. And when you couple the talent with just the commitment to being the best pitcher he possibly can, this is the type of bet that that we're excited to make."
As for what ultimately allowed the talks to budge into an agreement, Breslow said it was a bit of both coming to terms on the money and the length of contract.
"Without getting too deep into specifics it was all of those levers," he said. "I haven’t been doing this for all that long but my sense is when you get to a place where you’re agreeing on the financial considerations most of the time there’s a deal that’s reached there. So heading into opening day we had not aligned on any of those things and I think that’s probably why both sides knew that we could recognize we were close but also that there was a real possibility that talks were getting tabled until next offseason. But then just through some further conversation it became clear where this could go and fortunately where this was going made sense for both sides."