Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale throws to a Seattle Mariners' batter during the second inning of a ... [+]
In the span of a week this past offseason, the Atlanta Braves bet big on Chris Sale, then immediately doubled down. Now they’re reaping the rewards.
On December 30, they traded promising young infielder Vaughn Grissom to the Boston Red Sox for the veteran left-hander. It was a one-for-one swap involving player born in the 1980s on a potentially expiring contract for a player born in the 2000s who will remain under team control through at least 2029.
On January 4, Atlanta signed their new starting pitcher to a two-year, $38 million extension—taking effect in 2024—with an $18 million club option for a third season. Sale is making $16 million this year and will earn $22 million in 2025, but his 2024 salary is canceled out by the $17 million sent by the Red Sox in the swap.
The trade and extension are paying strong dividends. Through six starts this season, Sale has a 3.44 ERA over 36 2/3 innings with 42 strikeouts. He has only allowed 28 hits and seven walks, giving him a 0.96 WHIP. In his most recent start on May 1, he struck out nine batters over five innings, surrendered only one run, and generated 21 swinging strikes—the most he’d had in any game in nearly five years.
After a dominant seven-year run from 2012-2018 in which he made the All-Star team and received Cy Young consideration every season, he struggled to stay on the field for the next five years. His 25 starts and 147 1/3 innings in 2019 were his lowest totals since becoming a starter. Tommy John surgery wiped out his 2020 campaign and limited him to nine appearances in 2021, then rib and finger fractures held him out of all but two contests in 2022.
When he started 20 games and threw 102 2/3 innings last year, it was viewed as a successful comeback at age 34 given how much time he had missed. He lacked the consistently nasty stuff and command that were his hallmarks in his 20s though, and finished with a 4.30 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP—his highest in a 100-inning season since 2012.
Now he’s enjoying a vintage Sale season, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio of 6.0 is the fourth-best in the National League. It’s even higher than his career mark of 5.27, which is the second-best in MLB history behind Jacob deGrom’s 5.38 (minimum 1,000 innings).
At this point, the extension looks like a win-win. Sale gets the security of at least one more guaranteed season, which matters a lot to a 35-year-old injury-prone hurler. The Braves have him locked up well below market value if he continues pitching the way he has been so far. Even though he’ll receive $22 million next year, his contract will only count $19 million against the luxury tax.
The extension also wiped out a potentially sticky vesting option clause from his previous contract. That deal ran through the 2024 season, but a $20 million option for 2025 would’ve been triggered by a top-ten Cy Young Award finish as long as he didn’t end the year on the injured list. For context, only eight pitchers received any Cy Young votes at all in the NL last season. That means even a single fifth-place vote potentially could’ve caused the option to vet.
Sale has not been the very best pitcher in the league this year, but he arguably has been among the top ten. 30 writers will have a Cy Young vote, and as long as he keeps up his production and stays healthy, it’s more than possible that one of those writers might consider him one of the the top five in the NL and list him on their ballot.
Of course, if he finishes the year with numbers worthy of a down-ballot Cy Young vote, a one-year, $20 million option would be far less than he would expect to earn on the open market. That would’ve put him in a catch-22. By pitching too well he would lose a chance at free agency, but by having less success he would decrease his value anyway. Thankfully, that’s a moot point since he signed the extension.
Instead of playing chicken with Cy Young voters, he can focus on shutting down Atlanta’s opponent every fifth day, trying to win another World Series ring, and potentially putting his career back on a Hall of Fame track.
