{"id":544265,"date":"2026-01-29T16:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/544265\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:19:13","slug":"mlb-network-gives-red-sox-ace-shockingly-low-preseason-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/544265\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Network Gives Red Sox Ace Shockingly Low Preseason Ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet is clearly one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/red-soxs-garrett-crochet-honored-among-mlbs-elite-in-top-100-rankings\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best pitchers in baseball<\/a>. He\u2019s proven that over the last two seasons, but especially last year, when he led the Major Leagues with 255 strikeouts while going 18-5 with a 2.59 ERA over 205 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n<p>While he didn\u2019t win the AL Cy Young, he <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/11\/red-sox-ace-finishes-runner-up-in-tight-al-cy-young-race\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">finished runner-up<\/a> to Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal in a close race. Along with Skubal and NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes, Crochet is arguably a top-three pitcher in the sport. He\u2019s definitely in the top five after ranking fourth among all pitchers in both FanGraphs WAR and Baseball-Reference WAR last season.<\/p>\n<p>However, MLB Network doesn\u2019t see it that way. \u201cThe Shredder\u201d spit out its preseason starting pitcher rankings on Wednesday, and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MLBNetwork\/status\/2016690257044132303\" rel=\"nofollow\">Crochet missed the top five completely<\/a>. It had him at sixth, below Skubal, Skenes, Zack Wheeler, Chris Sale and Cristopher Sanchez.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned, Skubal and Skenes being ahead of him is totally valid. Sanchez is neck and neck with Crochet but had a higher WAR last year, so that\u2019s defensible as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s harder to justify Wheeler and Sale, though. Both have longer track records, of course, but both missed much of last season with injury. Sale has been notoriously injury-prone this decade, and both are in their mid-30s.<\/p>\n<p>Crochet was better than both last year, and will likely <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/will-red-soxs-garrett-crochet-win-2026-al-cy-young-award-predictions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">be superior again this year<\/a> and going forward. He\u2019s a decade younger than them, after all, and appears to be much more durable at this stage of their careers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet is clearly one of the best pitchers in baseball. He\u2019s proven that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,919,922,4,877,89,2543,382],"class_list":{"0":"post-544265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-red-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-bostonredsox","12":"tag-chris-sale","13":"tag-garrett-crochet","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-paul-skenes","16":"tag-red-sox","17":"tag-redsox","18":"tag-tarik-skubal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115979299380961381","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}