Should the Garrett Crochet extension worry the Blue Jays?

Life in the American League East is never easy. The Toronto Blue Jays have to contend with the wealthy pockets of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, the incredible analytical minds of the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles and their exciting young core. And earlier this week, the Blue Jays got another reminder of how star-studded the rest of the division is — and how tough it's going to be to contend for a division title in the near future.

After one week the Red Sox, left-handed starter Garrett Crochet decided decided that he likes the Fenway Franks enough to sign a six-year $170 million extension to stay in Boston through his age-31 season.

Crochet arrived in Boston this past offseason after the Red Sox acquired him in a trade with the White Sox in exchange for four minor league players. Crochet debuted at the age of 21 in 2020 and has compiled a 5.9 bWAR in 105 games pitched, with a career 128 ERA+. He was one of the best pitchers in the league last season. He finished the year with 209 strikeouts and a strikeout rate in the 98th percentile.

Should the Blue Jays be worried about this big signing by a divisional rival?

On one hand, it’s never beneficial when a big-league arm like Crochet’s comes into a division that already has power arms like Gerrit Cole, Zach Eflin or any of the Rays young fireballers.

Crochet gives the Red Sox a legitimate ace for the foreseeable future – which means the Blue Jays will be seeing plenty of him over the next six seasons. FanGraphs projects Crochet to have a 11.65 K/9 rate (12th best in the league) and an fWAR of 4.8 (fourth in the league) this year.

He allowed two earned runs over five innings in his first start with Boston this year before tossing eight scoreless innings against the Orioles on Wednesday.

The Blue Jays haven't had any success against Crochet in the three times he has pitched against them in his career. In eight innings against Toronto, Crochet has seven strikeouts and has only given up two hits.

Those numbers shouldn't come as a surprise consider the team's struggles against left-handed pitching as a whole. Last season as a team they slashed .228/.303/.411 against left-handed pitching.

The Blue Jays have also struggled against the rest of the pitchers in Boston's rotation. In 2024, Tanner Houck struck out 19.4% of the hitters he faced in 17 1/3 innings against the Jays, and he has a 3.41 ERA in eight career starts against Toronto.

Walker Buehler held the Blue Jays to five runs over seven innings with eight strikeouts in his lone appearance against the team in 2019.

And while that was several seasons ago, Buehler had a great spring training and has a $25 million mutual option on the table with the Red Sox at the end of the year, so he'll be even more motivated to have a good season.

On the other hand, Crochet has been a starter for just one full season in his career.

He made 54 appearances as a reliever in his first full season in 2021 and missed all of 2022 and most of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery before getting the nod from the White Sox to move into the rotation last season. While Crochet has the stuff and the make-up to be a productive starter, we’ve seen plenty of players who explode out of the gate, dominate for a year and then regress in the years following – look no further than Toronto’s Alek Manoah.

While it’s never a good thing when one of Toronto’s rivals adds an All-Star caliber talent to their roster, that's the reality of playing in the American League East.