The Plot Thickens! Red Sox Exec’s Connection to White Sox GM Sparks Intrigue in Garrett Crochet Talks

Every trade negotiation in Major League Baseball can come down to splitting hairs. Sometimes, it’s about knowing the right people in addition to offering the right players.

The Boston Red Sox acquired left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox in what was arguably the biggest trade of the winter. Boston sent four top prospects, including their two most recent first-round picks, to Chicago in the deal.

According to a report from the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, the White Sox had a whiteboard of five teams listed as suitors for Crochet and potential prospects they’d consider acquiring during the winter meetings. And the day before the Red Sox wound up trading for Crochet, Chicago general manager Chris Getz had erased Boston from the whiteboard.

“We’re having these conversations, you’re looking at the board, and so when you have a group in there, you can get distracted: ‘Well, what if they do that?’ ‘Well, they’re not willing to do that.’ To limit the distractions, I just eliminated the Red Sox,” Getz said recently in Arizona. “I actually had erased the Red Sox. I didn’t feel like the motivation was quite there.”

Speier’s report also included a crucial bit of information about the executives involved: The deal likely would not have gotten done without the help of Red Sox assistant general manager Mike Groopman, who is good friends with Getz from their time together with the Kansas City Royals a decade ago.

“When you have a very long-standing general relationship, you can kind of cut through a lot of the BS that usually exists in these conversations and just cut to the heart of it,” Groopman said, per Speier. “We do have trust in each other to skip steps. We’re not kind of going through, ‘This is step one, step two.’ We can skip to step seven.”

The morning the trade happened, Getz said he woke up to a text from Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow saying, “Let’s get a deal done.” Groopman then helped broker a face-to-face meeting that sealed the deal.

Every single executive in a front office matters, as do their connections. There are plenty of people who deserve credit for Crochet wearing a Red Sox uniform, but if the lefty wins the Cy Young Award this season, Groopman ought to get a handsome bonus for his efforts.