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USATSI

The Red Sox might have missed out on some of their biggest free agent targets, but they made sure they didn't leave the Winter Meetings empty handed. Wednesday they landed one of the biggest names on the trade market, agreeing to a deal to acquire lefty starter Garrett Crochet from the White Sox for a package that includes four prospects. Let's break down both sides of the trade, starting with the Fantasy ramifications of Crochet's move east: 

Red Sox acquire Garrett Crochet

After 2024, Crochet is both a known quantity and still something of a question mark. He pitched like an absolute ace in 2024, with a merely decent 3.58 ERA hiding near-best-in-league peripherals. He led all starters in K-BB%, and among 108 pitchers who faced at least 500 batters in 2024, his 2.83 xERA was bested by just six guys. He had both an elite strikeout rate and elite walk rate, and sustained both even as he more than doubled his career-high in innings and dealt with the White Sox limiting his usage in the second half. 

All in all, it went about as well as you could have hoped for given Crochet's track record. He looked like a legitimate ace, and I don't have much question about the talent level. It's a legitimate starter's arsenal, and the Red Sox seem well-equipped to get the most out of him.

Assuming he stays healthy.

That's the caveat to any discussion about Crochet, who missed time in college with arm soreness, then made it through just 60.1 innings as a professional (all in relief) before needing Tommy John surgery. He held up well in 2024, but he also threw 133.1 innings more than he had the previous season. How will he hold up to a full-season's workload as a starter? It's an unanswerable question, and it makes valuing Crochet nearly impossible.

It's easy to see a top-five SP outcome for 2025, and I don't rank him far off – he's trending toward a top-10 ranking for 2025, for sure. The problem is, that he's being drafted as a top-five SP in December NFC drafts, which doesn't exactly leave much room for the many ways things could go wrong. The move to Boston should definitely raise Crochet's ceiling for wins, but it is also a pretty significant park downgrade and a tougher division, which is the kind of thing that doesn't matter if Crochet truly is a top-five pitcher in baseball, but would matter if he's more like a solid No. 2. 

I think Crochet is better than that, but given the uncertainty, I'm more comfortable drafting him as a lower-end SP1. And, it's worth keeping in mind that, even if he does stay healthy, he's still likely to have a workload deficit relative to other high-end starting pitchers. And, given the risk of things going wrong, taking him as your No. 1 probably means you have to be more thoughtful about how you draft the rest of your staff – can you really afford to take a flier on Tyler Glasnow or Hunter Greene as your No. 3 start if Crochet is your ace? That feels like an awful lot of risk to take on from premium picks, to me.

I should also note here that the Red Sox very clearly are not done. They did a good job getting a potential ace starter without touching any of their top three prospects or their slew of interesting young major-leaguers. They still need at least one more frontline starter, and they could either sign one outright or dip back into their prospect stash for another big trade.

And I hope they do, both because this rotation is extremely incomplete and because they have some playing time gluts to clear up. Right now, there is no obvious spot for Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, or Marcelo Mayer in their Opening Day lineup, and their lineup still leans too left-handed heavy. They seem well-positioned for a consolidation trade, and I'm hoping this isn't the last big move we see Boston swing. 

White Sox acquire Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, and Wikelman Gonzalez

Teel is the obvious prize here and a solid get for the White Sox. He also might potentially be a bit underwhelming for a guy who is a consensus top-50 prospect heading into the 2025 season.

It's not a knock against Teel, I think, to say this. It's just that his primary value comes from 1) being a catcher, and 2) being a catcher with a relatively high probability of actually being a good major-league player. Catchers are, notoriously, some of the toughest bets among prospects, because they tend to develop slowly and there are just so many ways for things to go wrong for them. Teel seems about as sure a bet as a catching prospect can be to be an everyday player, but he might lack a superstar ceiling as a tradeoff. 

Teel was the No. 14 pick in the 2023 draft and has moved fast as a college pick, excelling at Double-A and then holding his own in a late-season promotion to Triple-A at the end of his age-22 season. Teel hit .288/.386/.433 across both levels in 2024, with 13 homers, 12 stolen bases, and very good plate discipline. There isn't a ton of present power, and it's not clear Teel is likely to develop much along the way; similarly, there's enough athleticism to swipe 12 bases in 112 games, but probably not enough to ever be a J.T. Realmuto-level stolen base threat. 

But he's definitely going to stick at catcher, and probably be at least a league-average bat while doing so. That's a very valuable real-life player, but probably more like a low-end No. 1 catcher for Fantasy. In a recent episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, I compared him to Tyler Stephenson, another catcher who combines solidly average skills across the board; if Teel could be a consistent double-digit steal guy, that profile probably pushes him more toward the top-half of the No. 1 catcher ranks. His presence may push the more offensively-minded Edgar Quero off catcher, but given the attrition rate at the position, I imagine they'll let both keep donning the tools of ignorance until their hand is forced one way or the other. It's certainly not the worst problem to have as an organization, especially one as desperate for talent as the White Sox. 

Teel is the more well-known name as of now, but the White Sox also did well to acquire Montgomery, the No. 14 pick in last year's draft out of Texas A&M. Montgomery is probably a long-term corner outfielder, and he hit .322/.454/.733 with 27 homers in his junior season in college. The power will have to be his calling card because, as BaseballProspectus noted prior to the draft, Montgomery was "the only college bat in our top 10 with an overall contact rate below the D1 average over the past two seasons." 

Montgomery also has yet to make his professional debut after suffering a fractured ankle in his college postseason. But there's a plus power projection here, and he could move fairly quickly as an experienced college player. It's not a can't-miss profile, by any means, and without much athleticism to speak of, there's a lot of pressure on Montgomery to hit the ball consistently, and consistently hard. But on the low end of outcomes, he could be a Jake Burger-type, with some higher-end outcomes that look like off-year Pete Alonso. 

The White Sox valued proximity with this deal, and Meidroth might actually have the best chance of anyone here to crack the Opening Day roster in 2025. Meidroth mostly played third base prior to 2024, but spent more time at shortstop at Triple-A Worcester, though most scouts don't think he'll stick there. Meidroth has a terrific approach at the plate, leading to a bonkers 105-to-75 walk-to-strikeout ratio as a 22-year-old at Triple-A. 

The problem is there just isn't much power in this profile. He hit 10 homers in 56 games in his final year in college but has yet to reach double digits in a season as a professional. At Triple-A, his average exit velocity was 88.6 mph, while he maxed out at 108.1 mph; that compares to relatively punchless MLB hitters like David Fry, Jared Triolo, and Orlando Arcia. And the problem there is, guys with exceptional plate discipline in the minors tend to lose that outlier skill when major-league pitchers realize they won't be able to do much damage against them when challenged. Meidroth feels like a likely major-leaguer, and given the White Sox lack of alternatives, potentially as soon as Opening Day in 2025. But from a Fantasy perspective, it seems more like an AL-only kind of profile. 

Gonzalez is the lone pitcher in this haul, and it seems like he's trending to an eventual bullpen role – the Red Sox used him out of the bullpen at times at Double-A last season and generally limited him to five innings even when he was starting. There's strikeout upside here, but the whole profile played down across the board in 2024, and even when he pitched better in the second half, his 27.8% strikeout rate from July 1 on was more good than great, especially with a walk rate near 10%. The White Sox have no reason not to try Gonzalez as a starter at Triple-A in 2024, and he might even make his debut there in the majors. But it feels like a relief profile in the long run, and that's a profile Fantasy players need to get too excited about.