Report: Trade Interest in Garrett Crochet "Dried Up"

He was thought of just a few weeks ago as the top trade chip on the market heading down to the trade deadline this past Tuesday. But Garrett Crochet remains a Chicago White Sox pitcher now that the deadline has passed. Why?

According to insider Jon Heyman—and not that this will really surprise anybody— when Crochet came out last week and publicly said he would not pitch in the postseason with any team that traded for him without signing an extension, teams all around the league backed off, and "interest dried up."

How that relationship between team and players will continue is now seriously in question, as we reported a few days back that the Pale Hose were furious with Crochet for going public with that demand, obviously knowing that it would play out just as it did, with teams either not offering much, or simply not wanting to touch the pitcher at all.

The White Sox were robbed of a major haul of prospects by Crochet's antics, and they have a right to be angry.

It all stems from the fact that Crochet has already thrown more than double the amount of innings this season that he's thrown in any of his three shortened seasons previously. With the 25-year-old still under team control for two more seasons, he knows that if he was to go down with a serious arm injury from being overworked, he'd have nothing to fall back on, and no long-term guarantee of finding work in the majors.

His performance this year has been very tantalizing, as he's posted a major league-leading 160 strikeouts in those 114 innings, for an MLB-best 12.6 K/9. He also keeps the walks in check, and has a 160:26 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and a WHIP of 1.01 with an ERA of 3.23.

So for now, he'll remain an unnecessary luxury for the bottomed-out White Sox. But based on the relationship that likely exists now, we would expect that Crochet trade talks will be re-visited this offseason.