Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Garrett Crochet Traded to the RED SOX! - INSTANT REACTION (12/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Garrett Crochet is being traded to the Boston Red Sox (2:34)! ... How does he fit in Fenway Park (7:13)? ... Should Crochet be drafted as a top five starting pitcher in Fantasy (10:15)? ... How do the Red Sox and White Sox rotations look (16:15)? ... What do we think of the prospect return for the White Sox (20:35)? To display your continued support of the show, please vote Fantasy Baseball Today in the Sports Podcast Awards in the "Best Baseball Podcast" Category https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. A little over eight years ago, the Red Sox acquired Chris Sale from the White Sox. Well, today, history has repeated itself. Welcome into an emergency edition of Fantasy Baseball today. On Wednesday, December 11th, I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. It has been a very busy winter meetings, but I love it. And so do the Red Sox. They are acquiring Garrett Crochet from the White Sox in exchange for four prospects.

Kyle Teal, Braden Montgomery, Chase Mindroth, and Wickleman Gonzalez. Let's start with Crochet, Chris, because he was probably the biggest breakout pitcher in baseball this season among pitchers with 140 innings. Crochet was first in K-minus walk rate, first in swinging strike rate, and fourth in expected ERA. The biggest question, and we've had this all along, is how will Crochet's arm hold up, going from 25 total innings last year, all the way up to, 146 this past season. Your thoughts on that and the trade.

I mean, it's not just going from 25 innings to 146 innings. It's going from, let's see, he had 54 innings in 2021. He did not pitch in 2022 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He threw nine and a third innings in 2020 between college and the pros. He had 131, 131. 132 innings total in college and about 70 maybe as a professional before last season. So like it's completely uncharted territory.

He didn't really start. Like he didn't pitch a starter's workload in the second half of last year as the White Sox, you know, limited him to four innings basically every outing. So it's a huge unknown how he's going to bounce back after that innings jump, how he's going to look being asked to throw a starter's workload for a whole season. But there is no doubting. The talent is there for Garrett Crochet to win a Siont, frankly. I think that's how high the upside is based on what he showed us in 2024.

I know the ERA, especially at 358, was a little inflated. You have to remember, he was pitching for the worst team in baseball. In, you know, for half the season, a very non-competitive way. And that stuff is going to catch. up to you and it's going to make it hard to pitch at your best. So I think you give him a mulligan for how the second half of the season went. And at least on talent, I don't know if there are more than five more talented pitchers in baseball right now than Garrow-Crochet. So, you know, when we talk about ranking him for the 2025 season, I think you can make a case for him as one of

the 10 top pitchers in fantasy. I'm not ranking him that way, to be clear, but I think you can make the case for it. He's more, I think he's 13 for me right now. Let me make sure. Nine for me in my 2025 rankings, right behind Cole Regans. And I do realize I started the show bringing up Chris Sale. I mean, that's a very lofty comparison. Chris Sale was much more established when he was traded from the White Sox to the Red Sox.

But to your point, Chris, the upside that we think Garrick Crochet has is that he could be a perennial Cy Young contender for years to come. I mean, that's the type of stuff that he has. He's got an amazing fastball, cutter, slider. Started during a sinker late in the season. That looked really good for him. So yeah, I think it's unquestionably a starter's arsenal. You know, I think he proved that last year.

I think he proved he can be an impact starter. It's just one of the bigger injury red flags heading into 2025, given his injury history, has already had Tommy John's surgery, has missed a lot of time, and then doesn't have the track record of having thrown even 70 innings multiple times, let alone 150 or what you typically look for. So it's, I think one of the most volatile profiles in fantasy for 2025 and beyond, but, you know, I think there could be, I'm not 100% convinced Paul Skeens is a better pitcher right now than Gerex. Gero Crochet. That's how high I think the ceiling is for Gare Crochet.

Let's talk about the fit with the Red Sox. And by the way, if I haven't made this abundantly clear by now, this is an amazing get for the Red Sox. Obviously, sounds like they were in on Max Freed, potentially in on Corbyn Burns. You know, I think it was pretty... Should still be in on Corbyn Burns, to be clear. Yes, they should. Obviously, they have money to spend, and they really haven't spent a lot of it in previous off-season. But it was clear this offseason that they should have been in on all the big names. And obviously they have the prospect capital to get something like this done. So a great deal for the Boston Red Sox.

And, you know, they seem like an up and coming organization just in terms of pitching development. I know they've made some changes. They brought in some people from driveline baseball in previous years. They did some great work with Tanner Halk and Cutter Crawford last season. So I think that I don't know that they need to do much with Garrett Crochet, but, you know, perhaps they can tweak a few more things and get even more upside out of him. the one worry I might have outside of the injuries, Chris, is Crochet did struggle giving up barrels, 9.2% barrel rate ranked in the 21st percentile.

So my mind starts thinking a left-handed pitcher in Fenway Park. You know, he's got the green monster there. Does that worry you at all when projecting forward for Garrett Crochet? It is a park downgrade. Fenway Park is a, you know, much tougher environment than guaranteed rate field. Last year, over the last three years, it's rated as the second best hitters park. in baseball, according to baseball savant, behind course field ahead of Cincinnati, which is surprising.

I think the big thing there is Fenway does actually suppress home runs a little bit, despite the short outfield corners. It gets really deep pretty quickly in both spots. But the thing is, it is just a huge babit boost. like there's it's a big outfield batter seem to hit see the ball very well and so that is a concern you know less so for garra crochet giving up a bunch of home runs and more so just running an inflated babb and dealing with the um the downsides that result from that but look if you have if if a 35% strikeout rate is his true talent level or anything close to that especially with

how he limited walks last year which was i think the biggest surprise. He was like an elite strikeout pitcher and an elite control pitcher. He had the best K minus walk rate in baseball. If he can be a, I mean, a 30% K minus walk ratio is a bonkers number for a starter. If that's anything like real, I don't think it matters where he pitches. Yeah. I mostly agree with that. Slight park down grade, but he's also going from a team that won 41 games to a team that won 81 games. So just the- And figures to push closer to I think this year. Yes, the team context is just,

it's on completely different levels right now. And the White Sox are getting even worse, at least in the short term. They've got some prospects coming. They got pitching talent in the works. But I actually kind of like this deal for them. I seem to be in the minority, but like I think it's a good deal for both teams.

To be clear, I think the Red Sox did extremely well to like kind of annoyingly for fantasy, not move. any of their projected starters for 2025. So they still have the same log jams that they had before. And I like they still have flexibility if they wanted to to make another big trade. Yeah. You know, I don't know like Kyle Tucker is out there and being talked about.

Framber Faldas would actually be a good pickup for them as well if they want to, but they don't have to because they could spend money also. But I think both sides did very well. the White Sox clearly prioritized. We'll get to it, but they prioritized proximity to the majors in all of these guys, I think. And given that, I thought there's a good mixture of floor and upside on this deal for the White Sox. Yeah, we'll talk a little bit more about the return and, you know, how things are kind of shaping out for the Red Sox in just a second. I wanted to wrap up just on Garrick Crochet, the cost right now. So the early NFBC ADP, he's going 40th overall as the SPP. 8 off the board. If you look in only December, that's up to pick 35 as the SP5. So we talked about this last month, Chris, where if you wanted to get Gary Crochet hop in an early draft, because that was the time to do it. And he was going closer to like 15 at like the 55 to 60 range, like a month and a half ago. Yeah. So the price is all the way up there. You mentioned where you

have them in the rankings. Would you be willing to pull the trigger on a late third, early 4 fourth round pick as, you know, maybe a top six, top seven starting pitcher in Gary Crochet. I would guess among pitchers, I, okay, no, I'm sorry. I was looking at it. I have Shohei Otani. He shows up at pitcher, but he's not actually a top 10 pitcher. So I have Garcrochet eight at starting pitcher, which is a little lower than that ranking. So it depends, like, I would assume he's going ahead of Chris Sale now. I think I'd rather have Chris Sale, assuming he's healthy. in spring training. We don't really know.

He dealt with that back injury at the end of last season. But if he's fine, I think I'd rather have Chris Sale, similar upside, but a little more projectable. I would assume he's going ahead of Cole Regens. I would rather have Cole Regens. There's a bit of like the mystery box

to Garretto crochet there, but like Cole Regens already did it. Like he threw 170 innings as an ace last year. Is he going ahead of Corbyn Burns? He is going, No. I would assume he's, no. So he's ahead of sale and Gilbert?

Are you talking about just December or overall? December. So yes, I believe in December, he will be, he is ahead of Corbyn Burns. I'd rather have Burns. Obviously, we don't know where he's going to pitch, but I can't imagine he's going to land in Colorado or anywhere that would dramatically change my view of him. So there are, it seems unlikely that I'll draft much,

Garrett Crochet, if he's truly going to be the number five SP, it's just, there are too many ways for it to go wrong, but the upside is a hundred percent there. Yeah. You just, you have to be a little particular about how you build the rest of your pitching staff. That's exactly right. The four starting pitchers in December going ahead of crochet, Paul Skeens, Terrick Scoobel, Zach Wheeler, and Logan Gilbert. So, Crochet is going ahead of Burns, Sale, Kirby, DeGrom, those are the pitchers that are right after Garretcher. I was putting together some preliminary SP rankings yesterday, and I had Crochet at SP5.

I had him ahead of Burns. I had him ahead of Chris Sale, and it's incredibly aggressive. I'm still kind of working through my thoughts, because I don't want to contradict myself. You know, I have concerns about other injury risks at starting pitcher, but the upside is just so tantalizing with Garrett Crochet. And if you take him, you can still get a Framber Valdez,

someone who's more projectable in terms of innings, a Bailey Ober, a George Kirby. You can pair him with those guys, you know? The problem is you look at the pitcher rankings, and it's like, if you take Gary Crochet as your SP1 as a top five pitcher, you probably can't take Michael King, right? Similar innings and injury concern for 2025. Probably can't take Yoshinovi Yamamoto. Yeah. You can't take glass now.

You can't take to Grom. You can't take Tyler. I don't think you can take Blake Snell. I don't think you take strider. So, like, that is the thing. Hunter Green probably not. Like it kind of because one, I think the ceiling is probably still only like 170 innings. And there's a lot of risk in projecting him.

It just takes you out of kind of a whole class of SP2 and SP3s that you start. You have to be really thoughtful about the way you build the rest of your team. If you take Garrett Crochet in a way that I don't quite know if it's worth a late third round pick in a 12 team league, potentially a late second in a 15 team league, that's a little harder to justify for me. All right, let's take a quick break. When we return, we'll talk about the updated rotations

for the Red Sox, the White Sox, the Red Sox lineup, the return in this trade, we'll do that all right after this. Welcome back in, talking through some of the fallout. Garrett Crochet traded over to the Boston Red Sox, taking a look at the updated Red Sox rotation. Chris, we have Crochet up at the top. Tanner Halk, Brian Beow, Cutter Crawford,

and Richard Fitz with Lucas Chelito, I guess, on the way returning some point, mid-season, something like that. But you're right, man, this is a rotation. Not a good rotation. Could still use a Corbyn Burns or some kind of other trade. And the Red Sox have the assets to, let's try and wow the Mariners, or if the Mariners want to give away Luis Castillo,

maybe they try something like that. So it seems like something they should be in on, you know, over the next month or two. This is a team that could add two more starting pitchers, and I wouldn't really blink. Like Cutter Crawford had a fine season. I think they did a good job getting what they did out of him, but I think the ceiling there is pretty limited.

Tanner Halk, you know, obviously slowed up, and there are some concerning things in the bad ball data. Brian Beow may just be like a number five. Like, this should not be the final version of the Red Sox rotation. I think it would be a very bad thing. for them if it is given how many cost controlled hitters they have and the fact that they're the Boston Red Sox and they print money. So I think the lineup is not set. I think the rotation is not set. There's a lot of moving parts still in Boston. And like I said earlier, one of the frustrating things about this deal, and it's sort of similar to when Baltimore traded for Corbyn Burns last year, where great, you got a stud pitcher. Congratulations. it still didn't fix the problems for fantasy, which is not their concern.

They don't care about that. And rightly so. But it's like, this is still a team with a lot of playing time log jams all over the field. And nobody expects Masatake Yoshita to be there in 2025. You know, I'd be surprised if David Hamilton was the starting second baseman there. Tristan Kasa is still probably on the market.

There's still a chance Jaron Durand gets moved, although that would have to be a huge deal. So there's still a lot of moving parts. Still nowhere for Marcella Meyer, Roman Anthony, or Christian Campbell to play right now as things stand. I think that's very well said. You know, they have a bunch of left-handed hitters in their lineup as well. They've been trying to acquire more, you know,

right-handed bats or get some right-handed bats in their lineup. Christian Campbell is a righty, so that would make some sense. They've been talking to Teoska Hernandez this off-season, which I think makes a lot of sense. as well, but they need to clear up some spots. Whereas Masataka Yoshida going to wind up, how much of that contract are they going to have to eat in order to move him?

You look at their five out of their top six players in their projected lineup right now are all left-handed hitters. So I do think there are still changes to come for the Boston Red Sox. In terms of the White Sox, we understand, again, 41 win season. They're going to be really bad again. Wouldn't surprise me if they trade Luis Robert this offseason as well.

I mean, they've got the full teardown in effect right now. Their current rotation, Chris, as it stands, make sure to stream all your hitters against the White Sox pitchers because Jonathan Cannon, Davis Martin, Sean Burke, Drew Thorpe, Nick Nistrini have a lot of awesome pitching prospects on the way, but that's maybe August, September. I think that's more 2026. Yeah. Stream your hitters against White Sox pitching this year. Yeah. Drew Thorpe is in the rotation, right? His His injury was not a long-term one. It could turn into it, but as of now, it seems like he's there.

I have seen some excitement. He's probably the best pitcher in that rotation, and I'm not a super big fan of Drew Thorpe. So yeah, that's pretty bad. One name I do want to give a little shout out to, and I've seen people who are much smarter than me, some prospect guys, some stuff plus guys talking about Sean Burke. So I just kind of wanted to mention him as he got called up late last season. He threw 19 innings in the major. a 142 ERA, lots of strikeouts.

He was a mess in the miners, lots of walks, but he is someone who pops in Stuff Plus models. And I've kind of heard like a poor man's Jared Jones comp thrown out there. So we'll see if Sean Burke can turn into anything for the White Sox. Let's talk about this return here, Chris. Four big prospects coming back to the White Sox for Garry Crochet. They got catcher Kyle Teal. They got outfielder of Brayden Montgomery.

They got infielder Chase Midroth. and right-handed pitcher Wickleman Gonzalez. I texted our buddy the Welsh. I asked him what he thought about the return, and he said, quote, great return. You need two catchers now, so it's fine. I think they could explore him playing other spots too,

talking about Edgar Caro in that sense. And I want to say that he's played outfield. Montgomery is my favorite here, huge impact bat. Wickleman is also a great arm. So just your first impressions of the return here. It is a little confusing that the headliner of this trade is Kyle Teal a catcher when the White Sox have another top catcher prospect in Edgar Carrow.

Yeah, I think the thing with Carrow though is he might have enough bat to play somewhere else. Like probably not first base, but if he could hold his own in left field, I could see it working out. He's got a great eye at the plate. He makes a lot of contact. There's a little bit of pop there. You know, you could see like 20, 25 homers at his ceiling. if he's playing every day and not focusing on catching. So I can see it, right?

Like you can probably never have too many pitchers and you can probably never have too many catchers because especially when it comes to prospects, catchers are incredibly volatile. Things go wrong all the time. They take longer than you'd think to get to the majors and establish themselves. So it's not a bad thing to have options there.

if, oh, no, we have two starting caliber catchers. Like, if that actually becomes a problem, okay, then we'll deal with that when it comes. But how many times has that actually happened, right? Like, I'm old enough to remember when the Blue Jays had Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk. And it was this big problem that they couldn't play. And it's like, well, so much for that in both regards. So I would guess the white socks get one catcher in the long term out of. of Kyle Teal and Edgar Quiro and whether that's one of them fails,

one of them moves, Quiro moves to a different position. Who knows? The thing about Kyle Teal is he is probably not a superstar. We talked about this on the podcast that came out on Wednesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Um,

I'm a mess. There's a lot going on this week. These prospect podcasts and knowing when they're coming out, it's going to be a real problem for me. But in the one that came out on Tuesday, I was a little down on Kyle. in our discussion. And I feel like my role on these podcasts prospect podcast is just going to be to throw cold water on everyone.

That might be the role that I'm feeling. But the thing with Kyle Teal is I don't see superstar potential there. The cop I made to him was Tyler Stevens. But it's a high probability that Kyle Teal will be a major league starter. You know, maybe he maxes out at Tyler Stevenson and that's a really useful player but not a superstar. you probably want a superstar when you're trading a garret crochet. And that's where Braden Montgomery comes into the picture because that is a high upside bat.

It's a volatile bat. He hasn't made a professional appearance to date since being drafted. I think 14th overall in the 2024 draft. Baseball prospectus had him ninth on their big board coming into the draft. I think he fractured his ankle in the college world series. and that was why maybe he fell a little bit and then didn't debut in 2024. Big time power potential. He's a pretty big guy.

A lot of swing and miss concern as well. The quote that jumped out on baseball prospectus, he was the only college bat in their top 10 with an overall contact rate below the Division 1 average over the past two seasons. So kind of seems like your stereotypical corner slugging corner outfielder where I don't know. The low end outcome is maybe like a Jake Burger type where it's, you know, not really that great of a player because of, you know, low OBP, bad defense, whatever it is. But there should be power here.

And I think on the high end, you could be looking at like off year Pete Alonzo where, you know, it's not the 50 homer version of Pete Alonzo probably, but like a consistent 30 homer, low batting average. guy. I could see that being the case for Braden Montgomery. Yep. Did want to just quickly mention again on the catchers selfishly, it kind of sucks for fantasy this season because we thought there was a chance we could gain two catchers in the player pool as soon as next season, right? I mean, Edgar Caro could have been up with the White Sox and as good as Connor Wong is. I don't think he's very good. I think Kyle Teal could have taken that job from him. But now maybe we only wind up with one or maybe they're splitting time and it just kind of becomes a headache for fantasy.

So I think you would hope Quero is playing some DH or first base or left. I mean, really, he might be a better hitter than anyone. The white socks might reasonably throw out at any of those spots. So that would be the hope. And look, there's a chance neither of these guys is even up on opening day. Kerro and Kyle Teal because they've both played, I don't know, I don't know, right around 30 games at AAA. So like send them both back to Charlotte, I think is where their, their AAA is. Like that wouldn't be surprising. Maybe Clara gets more time at the outfield to see what that looks like.

But yeah, that's a good point. Is it kind of might kneecap both of their values for 2025 as as sleepers? The other two names in this deal, infielder Chase Midroth and right-handed pitcher Wickleman Gonzalez. My draw, he's 23 years old. He has a great hit tool, great eye at the plate. Career 285, 425 on base percentage in the minors. He can play all over the infield. I actually think he's very likely to be up on opening day

starting at second or third base, something like that for the White Sox. Don't know that there's huge upside, but maybe as like a points league player, we could see him make some noise. And then Wickleman Gonzalez, there's some upside here, Chris. There's a big fastball.

There's some strikeouts. Could be bound for the. the bullpen. What do you think about those two? Yeah, it seems likely the Gonzalez ends up in the bullpen. However, it's the White Sox. And we just talked about their rotation and how few guys there are there. So I don't think they're going to move him to the bullpen next year. The Red Sox did, I think five of his appearances last year were out of the bullpen. He didn't throw more than five innings in any start. And frankly, he was a disaster in the first half. It was better in the second half. But even then the strikeout rate from July 1st on was 28%.

That's good, but not like world beating for a 22-year-old at AA. And the walk rate was close to 10%. So I think in the long run, you're probably talking about Gonzalez as a bullpen arm, but there is no reason for the white socks to hurry that. They should give him every opportunity to start. He'll probably start the season at AAA with some really interesting arms. at AAA. Noah Schultz, like you mentioned, will probably be at AAA. Jake Ader. There's another guy that I'm forgetting there as well. I think Hagen Smith will probably be a double.

Yeah. So they have no reason not to give him a chance. My draft is 105 walks to 75 strikeouts last year as a 22-year-old in AAA. That is bonkers stuff. The problem is, And this is a prospect type that I think Scott likes a lot more than I do. He's relatively punchless as a hitter. Like he's not, it's not bottom of the barrel exit velocities, but it's pretty, pretty mediocre. 88.6 average 108 max. You look at like MLB hitters.

That's like David Fry, Jared Triolo, and Orlando Arcea are in that same range. And my draft doesn't seem to. do a lot to like maximize the power that he has despite good back control and maybe that's a path forward for him start pulling the ball more i don't know um there's also not a ton of speed here uh it was 13 stolen bases and 122 games last year at triple a that was his first time with more than 10 at any stop he had 13 and 111 games the year before that all sounds pretty a l only e to me but could be a lead-off hitter with that eye at the plate. 437 on-base percentage at AAA last year is pretty huge.

So, you know, even in a bad lineup, a lead-off hitter can score 85 to 90 runs if he gets on base a ton. And that could make him relevant. It's just the overall package kind of sounds like, I don't know, Jonathan India or something. I was just thinking 10-10, 10 homers, 10 seals, good OBP, you know. And like if the speed doesn't translate, maybe it's more like J.P. Crawford, who is a very, very fringy fantasy option. So it's not a high probability, like seems like a high probability major league.

Is that a super utility guy? Is that like he starts for the white socks, but he might not start for anyone else? that might be more realistic, but certainly in an AL only league, he should be relevant for 2025. All right. Are there any other aspects of this trade that you would like to hit on before we wrap him? No. I mean, I just think the biggest thing for me and my biggest takeaway is just Boston's not done yet. And what the rest of their offseason look like, you know, like I said, they could absolutely afford to make another trade, another big trade for a legitimate star player. and still have a lot of good young talent. So it's how willing do they want to be to do that? And how much of a priority is it to open up playing time for Christian Campbell,

Roman Anthony, Marcelo Meyer immediately? That remains to be seen. And unfortunately, this trade did not do much to answer any of those questions. So right now, I think we have to project all three of their top three prospects remaining to open the season at AAA. So a lot to be, a lot to be done in Boston still. All right. Again, blockbuster deal, Garrett Crochet, getting traded over to the Red Sox in exchange for four prospects. We are going to wrap there for Chris.

I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow or maybe soon. Bye-bye.