Following seven consecutive top-six finishes in the voting from 2012 to 2018, Chris Sale won his first Cy Young Award in his first season with the Atlanta Braves.
The wily veteran was traded last offseason after five injury-plagued seasons in Boston. In exchange, the Red Sox received Vaughn Grissom. It was a gamble by Alex Anthopoulos, but as the old adage goes, scared money doesn’t make money, and the Braves GM was rewarded.
Sale turned in perhaps his best season to date, winning the NL Triple Crown for the first time since Clayton Kershaw did so more than a decade ago. He led the league with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA, and 225 strikeouts.
It was a deal that a lot of Braves fans could see the upside in, especially Chase, who pounded his fist on the table about how well it could work out. Suffice to say, it worked out as well as it possibly could’ve in Year 1.
Not everyone was as high on the Chris Sale trade, though. Rightfully so, Mackenzie Meaney of Deadspin is taking her medicine for her Atlanta Braves acquire washed-up pitcher blog posted nearly a year ago.
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/1741190313014948319
“The 34-year-old lefty has looked cooked. He’s either hurt — he only made two starts last season, and just nine in 2021— or ineffective, pitching to a 4.30 ERA in 20 starts this year,” Meaney wrote.
That’s not exactly inspiring stuff, but she missed a couple of critical factors in the Braves’ thinking. Sale’s stuff was still elite, evident in his 11.0 K/9, and his 3.80 FIP suggested that ERA was a bit inflated. Moreover, he finished the year healthy, something he hadn’t done in years.
When the Braves acquired him, they thought that with a healthy offseason he could build off the 2023 campaign, and they were right. This Deadspin take, from Mackenzie Meaney, aged like milk.
Congratulations to Chris Sale on his improbable climb back to dominance.
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David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
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