Former Red Sox Exec Places Huge Tag On Garrett Crochet For 2025 Season

Brian Bannister spent the 2024 season working with Garrett Crochet, and he truly believes the Red Sox just landed one of the best pitchers in the sport.

Bannister, who spent a few years in the Boston front office and in the dugout, was with the Chicago White Sox in 2024. The White Sox hired Bannister as a senior pitching advisor at the end of the 2023 season, and in the last year-plus, he saw Crochet harness his ridiculous stuff in a way that makes the sky the limit for the 25-year-old left-hander.

It’s safe to say Bannister believes the Red Sox made a shrewd move, even if it cost them four top prospects to land Crochet from Chicago last week.

“I think Garrett would have won the Cy Young last year if he was just allowed to be himself,” Bannister said in an interview with Audacy’s Rob Bradford on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast. “I don’t think it was in the best interest long term, but if you look at his rate stats: his ability to strike people out, his ability to get swing and miss in the zone, his ability to limit his walks — he will give up a homer now and then — but I think he’s one of, he’s in the inner circle of one of the five best pitchers in baseball next year. The Red Sox got a special arm.”

That should be music to the ears of Red Sox fans desperate for their team to add front-line starting pitching in a pivotal offseason. Crochet made a loud statement in 2024, taking the ball 32 times as the lone South Side bright spot. He struck out 209 batters in just 146 innings while walking just two batters per nine innings.

The big southpaw has a blink-and-you-miss-it fastball that sits in the high 90s, and he has tweaked his arsenal in the last year helping him to unlock the potential that made him a first-round pick out of Tennessee in 2020.

That combination of stuff and endurance makes him special, Bannister argued.

“You’re basically getting an elite, elite closer, almost like an Aroldis Chapman-type, but a guy that’s capable of going six innings and maintaining that level of performance,” he added. “I really think the Red Sox got somebody special.”

If Craig Breslow and the Red Sox front office can check a couple of more objectives off their to-do list, it will be a near-perfect winter for Boston. Just getting Crochet puts the Sox in a much better position to contend in 2025 — and beyond.