"Max Fried's best WAR was 4.9" - Ex-Red Sox coach believes Garrett Crochet is capable of outperforming Yankees' recent pitching acquisition

The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox have been active in the offseason and the two rival franchises made marquee additions to their rotation last week.

While the Yankees signed Max Fried to a lucrative eight-year, $218 million deal, the Red Sox, who were also pursuing the assured lefty in free agency, added Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox in a blockbuster trade.

Although Crochet didn't come cheap as Boston traded away Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez, the 25-year-old hurler had a breakthrough season in 2024 and could be the missing pieces in Red Sox's rotation.

Former Red Sox assistant pitching coach and White Sox's Director Of Pitching Brian Bannister believes Crochet has a higher ceiling than Fried.

In an episode of "Baseball Isn't Boring," Bannister said (30:20):

"He's a workhorse and what is undervalued is how good he's gonna be in a full season. Once he can throw six, seven innings for an entire year, I think It wouldn't surprise me if he's a 6-8 WAR pitcher next year. You look at the Yankees signing Max Fried and Max Friend's best season was 4.9 WAR, Garret Crochet's was 4.7.

"And we we had to throttle and he didn't pitch a full season. So in a full season of pitching, Uh I think he's gonna get to levels that very few pitchers in the game right now are capable of achieving because he has so much ability to miss bats in the zone."

Garrett Crochet made his MLB debut in 2020 and pitched in relief for the first four seasons of his career. However, he was moved to a starting role for the White Sox last season and Crochet aced the new role, earning a maiden All-Star call.

However, his workload was managed throughout the season due to his unfamiliarity with pitching several innings at a stretch. But Bannister believes once Crochet accommodates his arm to the workload, he could be one of the best pitchers in the game.

Red Sox land Garrett Crochet after failed negotiations at trade deadline in July

While the trade for Garrett Crochet felt like a reaction from the Red Sox to missing out on Max Fried, White Sox GM Chris Getz revealed that Boston had been interested in the hurler since the trade deadline in July, and it was their familiarity with the negotiations that helped the deal get through last week.

"This is a deal that was above what we could have gotten at the deadline from our evaluations," Getz said. "[The July discussions], more or less, set the bar for us, and it wasn't met at the deadline. But we feel like we went past it [Wednesday]."

Garret Crochet joins an underfire Red Sox rotation with Tanner Houck, Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, and Kutter Crawford, as they had the second-worst ERA in the AL East last season behind the Blue Jays.