Coolbaugh: Red Sox hit home run with Garrett Crochet trade; Belichick’s Bieniemy warning, Bruins’ leadership concerns taken BSJ Headquarters (Red Sox)

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Sep 7, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Garrett Crochet (45) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

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Coolbaugh: Red Sox hit home run with Garrett Crochet trade; Belichick’s Bieniemy warning, Bruins’ leadership concerns

By Gethin Coolbaugh

Dec 11, 2024 • 4:31 pm

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Now that’s more like it…

It seems you can shelve that panic button, after all.

As worries mounted that the Red Sox’s offseason was headed for another bridge to nowhere, our beloved baseball team finally got up off the mat and did something worthwhile. Craig Breslow finally has his first major acquisition, and it appears to be a home run. 

Enter Garrett Crochet, a 25-year-old budding All-Star entering his prime who is under two more years of team control. The Sox finally got the left-handed starter they’ve so desperately needed, and he just happened to come from the same team you successfully acquired your last great southpaw from. 

Will Crochet become Chris Sale 2.0? It’s possible. Perhaps not probable, but possible. There are similarities in the way they pitch, and this time the Sox are landing an All-Star starter from the White Sox in his age 25 season instead of age 28 with Sale.

Now, as for what Breslow had to give up in the deal… that’s where it becomes a home run, in my estimation.

Yes, the Sox are parting with one of their beloved “Big 3” prospects in catcher Kyle Teel (but as many readers at BSJ have been quick to assert, Kristian Campbell should easily be able to fill that void in terms of prospect hype… so the Sox really still do have a “Big 3,” after all). 

Beyond Teel, Boston is reportedly sending outfielder (and the organization’s No. 5 prospect per MLB.com) Braden Montgomery, infielder and No. 11 prospect Chase Meidroth and right-hander and No. 14 prospect Wikelman Gonzalez. 

To recap, the Sox are acquiring one of the top available arms and they didn’t have to give up a single major leaguer and two top 10 prospects to do it (Teel is Boston’s No. 4 ranked prospect). 

That, my friends, sure seems like a steal…

The fact that they didn’t have to part with a Wilyer Abreu, Triston Casas or Jarren Duran (but c’mon, you couldn’t have tossed Masataka Yoshida in there for good measure, Craig?) to land an All-Star like Crochet is pretty eye-opening. Score one for Breslow there…

Crochet will be entering his second full season as a starter after beginning his big league career in a bullpen role. The results last season were very solid: despite a 6-12 record (he did still play for the White Sox, after all), Crochet posted a 3.58 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP while striking out 209 across 146 innings.

His 209 punch-outs ranked ninth in all of baseball, and to see that kind of consistent production on the mound while going from 12 2/3 innings in 2023 to 146 is encouraging. It looks like he got his innings wall out of the way, so we shouldn’t be dealing with another Tanner Houck/Kutter Crawford situation.

Another added bonus is that the Sox were able to make this move without parting with any of John Henry’s precious money (although you’d figure an extension with Crochet will be coming down the pike). That means there might still be a chance Boston could sign another starter like Corbin Burnes, Roki Sasaski, Jack Flaherty, Walker Buehler, etc. 

My guess is that signing Burnes became less likely with the Crochet trade and the likes of Sasaki or Buehler are more realistic, if they do anything more at all. Hopefully they aren’t done, but nevertheless you definitely feel better about a Crochet, Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito, Houck, Crawford rotation for now…

Back to school

We all had Bill Belichick showing strong interest in taking a job in college on our bingo cards, right?

After striking out on what few NFL jobs were available last offseason, the greatest coach in football history is now evidently set on taking his talents to the college ranks — particularly to fill Mack Brown’s shoes at the University of Carolina.

It’s a surprising development, to say the least. My first question was… well, why? What does Belichick’s legacy stand to gain by becoming a college head coach for the first time at the age of 73 (by the start of next season)? 

Bill would have a tad further to go to surpass Joe Paterno’s FBS wins record of 409 than he would catching Don Shula’s record of 328 in the NFL. And despite the introduction of the NIL and revamped college transfer portal, building up a winner at college — and UNC in the ACC, of all places — would not be an overnight process. 

The only thing I can come back to as to why Bill would want to do this is simply for the love of the game.

Bill Belichick is a football coach, through and through. The man eats, sleeps and breathes football. He’s made a pretty good living at it and reputation for himself, and he clearly wasn’t (at the time of his Patriots firing) and isn’t ready to consider a life beyond football. That’s his prerogative. 

It’s just hard to envision a high likelihood of him succeeding at the college level as currently constituted. They might both be “football,” but the NFL and college are two very different games… a fact we were recently reminded of with the firing of Eric Bieniemy.

Once considered the best offensive coordinator in professional football with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs (a brief cameo with the then still woefully inept Commanders aside), Bieniemy’s offensive genius did not translate well during his one-and-done season as an associated head coach and offensive coordinator at UCLA.

Under Bieniemy, the Bruins went 5-7 while averaging just 18.4 points per game — ranking 126th out of 134 FBS teams in scoring. No other way to put it, those are just disastrous results.

My intention is not to rip on Bieniemy (who I would welcome in New England as an upgrade over Alex Van Pelt any day of the week…), but to hammer home the fact that the games at the professional and collegiate levels just do not translate very seamlessly.

Belichick, at least, is a defensive-minded coach, and I do think defensive coaching would translate better than offensive coaching at the college level. The fact is that Bill would be walking into uncharted waters here, and while his Patriots legacy is safely sealed, his football legacy could take a considerable hit if things go south…

But hey, at the end of the day, if Bill wants to keep coaching football, he’s certainly earned that right no matter the level…

B(r)ad leadership?

The Bruins got the expected boost they needed with the firing of Jim Montgomery and elevation of Joe Sacco as interim coach.

I’m not going to pretend that Sacco has reinvented the coaching wheel here — there’s a reason he was on your bench under Montgomery to begin with after a mostly disappointing stint in Colorado. But the results are the results, and the B’s have gone 7-3-0 under Sacco since the move was made.

This particular Bruins group has shown a responsiveness to coaching changes, but it’s also shown that those results eventually wear off.

Perhaps that was the case with Boston’s pitiful 8-1 loss to Winnipeg on Tuesday, a result that didn’t surprise at least one player on the roster: team captain Brad Marchand.

“This was coming, our practices have been sloppy,” Marchand told reporters after the laughable loss. “Our execution has been off there and it bleeds into games. They were good, and we were not good. We weren’t executing, we were lost in our coverage, and we didn’t win enough battles.”

That’s an interesting statement coming from the leader of a team that had just won a season-high four games in a row…

Now, I really don’t enjoy this… because I love Brad Marchand. I love the way he plays and embodies the city of Boston and I believe that he was the rightful pick for captain in Patrice Bergeron’s stead.

But if you knew it was coming… why couldn’t you stop it? Furthermore, why hasn’t your leadership been able to prevent this from happening on a regular basis?

It would be easy enough to argue that Tuesday’s game could just be a one-off… except it wasn’t. It marked the second time the B’s have given up eight goals and third time they’ve allowed seven or more this season.

Seven- and eight-goal games recurring isn’t something I believe any team should just be allowed to write off. No NHL team should give up those kinds of numbers on a regular basis. They are indicative of a systemic problem.

That problem could be more roster and talent related than anything. The Bruins have underwhelmed this season, and I think it’s fair to say this looks like an average to slightly above average team at best right now.

Yet the lows of the valleys that this team has experienced this season are just plain troubling. To be that bad is indicative of a lack of buy-in, and when that’s the case, you look to the individuals at the top. The coach is now gone, so the natural next step is to look to the veteran leadership, and that starts with Brad.

I’m not advocating for removing his ‘C’ or trading Brad — I would hate that — but I can’t help but wonder if it’s not time for Brad to take a look in the mirror and figure out why his messaging isn’t hitting home.

This Bruins team may not be a Stanley Cup contender, but they should be better than regular eight-goal lapses. Much better…

Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter, Threads and Instagram. 

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