Chris Sale’s extension with the Atlanta Braves was a win-win

In the span of one week last offseason, the Atlanta Braves bet big on Chris Sale, then immediately doubled down. Now they are reaping the rewards.

On December 30, they traded promising young infielder Vaughn Grissom to the Boston Red Sox for the veteran left-hander. This was a one-for-one trade involving a player born in the 1980s whose contract could expire for a player born in the 2000s who will remain under team control until at least 2029.

On January 4, Atlanta signed its new starting pitcher to a two-year, $38 million extension, effective in 2024, with an $18 million club option for a third season. The deal brings in $16 million this year and will bring in $22 million in 2025, but his 2024 salary is wiped out by the $17 million sent by the Red Sox in the trade.

Commerce and extension pay big dividends. After six starts this season, Sale has a 3.44 ERA in 36 2/3 innings with 42 strikeouts. He has allowed just 28 hits and seven walks, giving him a WHIP of 0.96. In his most recent start, on May 1, he struck out nine batters in five innings, allowed just one run and generated 21 hits, the most he had in a game in almost five years.

After a dominant seven-year stretch, from 2012 to 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 following 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 broken ribs and fingers kept him out of all but two competitions in 2022.

When he started 20 games and pitched 102 2/3 innings last year, it was considered a successful return at age 34 given the time he had missed. He, however, lacked the consistently nasty stuff and command that were his hallmarks in his 20s, and finished with a 4.30 ERA and 1.13 WHIP – his highest in a 100-inning season since 2012.

He’s now enjoying a vintage sales season, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio of 6.0 is fourth-best in the National League. That’s even higher than his career mark of 5.27, which is second-best in MLB history behind Jacob deGrom’s 5.38 (minimum 1,000 innings).

At this point, the expansion appears to be a win-win. Sale gets the security of at least one more guaranteed season, which means a lot for an injury-prone 35-year-old pitcher. The Braves are locking him up well below market value if he continues to pitch like he has been thus far. Even though he will receive $22 million next year, his contract will only have $19 million in the luxury tax.

The extension also erased a potentially sticky vesting option clause from his previous contract. That deal lasted through the 2024 season, but a $20 million option for 2025 would have been triggered by a top-ten finish in the Cy Young Award as long as he didn’t finish the year on the list injuried people. For context, only eight pitchers received Cy Young votes in the NL last season. This means that even a single vote for fifth place could have potentially resulted in the control option.

Sale hasn’t been the best pitcher in the league this year, but he’s arguably in the top ten. 30 writers will have a Cy Young vote, and as long as he maintains his production and stays healthy, it’s more than possible that one of those writers considers him one of the five best in the NL and enters him on his ballot.

Of course, if he finishes the year with numbers worthy of a Cy Young down vote, a one-year $20 million option would be far less than he’d expect to earn on the open market . That would have put him in a bind. By pitching too well, he would lose a chance to become a free agent, but by having less success, he would diminish his value anyway. Fortunately, it’s a moot point since he signed the extension.

Instead of playing chicken with Cy Young voters, he can focus on knocking out Atlanta’s opponent every five days, trying to win another World Series ring and potentially putting his career back on track. a Hall of Fame track.