Coming into the 2024 campaign, Chris Sale hadn’t thrown more than 150 innings since 2018, dealing with a myriad injuries. However, there was something a little different about this year than year’s past. For the first time in over a half-decade, Sale was healthy the entire offseason, and that momentum trickled into the regular season.
The grizzled veteran finished with an 18-3 record, 2.38 ERA, and 225 strikeouts across 29 starts, leading to the first Triple Crown winner in the National League since Clayton Kershaw more than a decade ago.
He led the NL in ERA+ (174), FIP (2.09), home runs per nine innings (0.5) and strikeouts per nine innings (11.4) en route to his eighth All-Star bid. Sale is in line to win a slew of awards this offseason, and he’s already earned one before Game 1 of the World Series.
Sporting News has named Chris Sale the NL Comeback Player of the Year.
Congrats, Chris! 🙌#BravesCountry pic.twitter.com/c5DErGKJPp
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) October 24, 2024
Sale is the frontrunner for the National League Cy Young Award, a finalist for the Comeback Player Award at the Players Choice Awards, and will surely be in the running for MLB’s Comeback Player of the Year honor as well.
The Braves sent Vaughn Grissom to Boston in exchange for Sale this offseason, and it couldn’t have worked out better. When Spencer Strider went down with a season-ending injury after just two starts, the Braves were in trouble. Nobody would have predicted at that moment the Braves would finish the year with the best rotation in baseball. The primary reason for that was Chris Sale, who replaced Strider’s production and then some.
Unfortunately, an injury caused Sale to miss the club’s Wild Card series, but it’s not considered serious and shouldn’t impact the 2025 season. With the re-emergence of Chris Sale, along with the return of Spencer Strider and the emergence of Spencer Schwellenbach and Reynaldo Lopez, the loss of Max Fried stings a whole lot less. Sale deserves all the praise in the world this offseason.
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Photographer: Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire
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