If you think Garrett Crochet would welcome the chance to get out of Dodge at first notice, think again. Crochet hates losing a record amount of games, but the White Sox All-Star with two years of contract control left said he’d “be receptive” to a contract extension that could keep him here through more years of rebuilding.
That said, the Sox are likely more interested in listening to trade offers for Crochet this offseason rather than paying the price to keep him beyond 2026.
“Those kinds of conversations, they’re not [entirely] reliant on myself,” Crochet said “Whatever happens, I know [general manager Chris] Getz does everything with the team’s best interest in mind. So I think we can trust that to remain true.”
Crochet said he likes the pieces the Sox have, the relationships he has built with the pitching staff and said he has “a lot of trust in Getz.”
“And so does everybody in our clubhouse,” Crochet said. “It’s now just a matter of letting our young guys develop and continue to get reps. You can kind of see everything coming together throughout the year as guys started to come up.”
Crochet, who broke in as a rookie fresh out of Tennessee during the 2020 COVID season and participated in two postseasons, said he preferred the “villain” or “underdog” role the Sox played to the Cubs in the city to the “forced chemistry in 2022 and ’23″ of manager Pedro Grifol’s F.A.S.T. (fearless, aggressive, selfless, technically sound) motto.
“What we were trying to do with ‘play F.A.S.T.’ was go out there and be Cleveland [Guardians], and we’re not Cleveland,” Crochet said. “Though they play a very admirable brand of baseball, that’s just not who we are. We have a different type of player in our organization than they have. I always liked in ‘21 — it was a different cast and crew — but I liked how it was kind of the villain role.”
In any case, Crochet likes the culture surrounding interim manager Grady Sizemore and endorsed him for the full-time job next season.
“He’s got the credibility of having played at this level, and at a really high level,” Crochet said. “So there’s a lot of faith and trust that the guys have in him. Would love to see him here moving forward.”
Crochet (6-12, 3.68 ERA) makes his final start against the Tigers Friday, and while he hasn’t pitched more than four innings since June 30 in his first season removed from Tommy John surgery, he followed the unexpected achievement of starting Opening Day with going wire to wire with 32 starts.
He was pushed back a day to face the postseason chasing Tigers instead of the Angels.
“That’s the biggest part, is that it’s a division opponent,” Crochet said. “We want to beat those guys. I haven’t faced them since Opening Day. I like to think I’m a different pitcher from then.”
This and that
Strength and conditioning director Goldy Simmons has taken a job with the Phoenix Suns of the NBA.
*Double-A manager Sergio Santos, who guided Birmingham to the Southern League championship, wants to be considered for the Sox manager’s job.
. “It’s a great organization I would love to be at the helm of,” Santos said. “I just hope I’m fortunate enough to be considered.”
*Season attendance was 1,380,433, the lowest since 1999. The Sox averaged 17,928 over 77 games.