Chris Sale’s extension with the Atlanta Braves was a win-win
In the span of a week this offseason, the Atlanta Braves invested heavily on Chris Sale before quickly doubling down. Now they are receiving the benefits.
On December 30, they sold promising teenage infielder Vaughn Grissom to the Boston Red Sox for the veteran lefty. It was a one-for-one trade between a player born in the 1980s with a potentially expiring contract and a player born in the 2000s who will be under team control until 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 to 2018, during which he made the All-Star team and was considered for the Cy Young Award each season, he struggled to stay on the field for the next five years. In 2019, he made 25 starts and pitched 147 1/3 innings, his lowest total since becoming a starter. Tommy John surgery ended his 2020 season and limited him to nine matches in 2021, while rib and finger fractures kept him out of all but two games in 2022.
Given how much time he had missed, starting 20 games and throwing 102 2/3 innings last year was considered a strong recovery at the age of 34. He lacked the consistent nasty stuff and command that defined him in his 20s, finishing with a 4.30 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP—his highest in a 100-inning season since 2012.
Sale is currently having a classic season, with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 6.0, which ranks fourth in the National League. It’s even higher than his lifetime mark of 5.27, which ranks second in MLB history only to 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.
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