The Braves’ most significant acquisition of the offseason was Chris Sale, who will help solidify a rotation that dealt with a plethora of injuries last season.
That worries some fans because Sale himself has dealt with more injuries than just about any pitcher over the last few seasons. He’s made just 31 starts since 2020 and pitched well fewer than 200 total innings. However, Sale is healthy for the first time in years entering the offseason, and despite the injuries, there are still no questions about his stuff. He remains one of the best strikeout pitchers in the game when healthy, and the Braves don’t need him to be an ace. They already have a couple of those in Max Fried and Spencer Strider, which will allow them to monitor Chris Sale closely in hopes he will be at his best come October.
That’s the ultimate goal; it really doesn’t matter how Sale performs during the regular season, the Braves have enough to win the division running away, even in the competitive NL East. It’s all about being best prepared for the playoffs. In each of the last two postseason runs, the Braves rotation has been hobbled with injuries to Max Fried, Spencer Strider, and Charlie Morton.
With Sale, they have more options when injuries inevitably arise once again. He’s a veteran that has pitched in loads of postseason games. That experience will be invaluable to the clubhouse, and so will his competitive drive, which is what Braves pitching coach Rick Kranitz highlighted when talking about Chris Sale on MLB Network Radio.
“The toughness, I love it,” said Kranitz on Sale. “It’s a great example that you brought up about a Randy Johnson type guy, and I love this. He’s such a fierce competitor. I talked to him not long ago, and I told him I was there in Baltimore when you (Chris Sale) threw your very first game when he was with the White Sox. He came into the league, and I got a chance to see him his very first outing, and then got to see him from afar kind of grow into who he’s become, and he just brings a different element for us for sure. That’s the toughness, the competitiveness, this no nonsense guy.”
Chris Sale’s talent on the mound is undeniable. This is a man who was arguably the best pitcher in baseball from 2012-2018, and even with the injuries, he still looks eerily similar to that pitcher when healthy. In over 100 innings last season, he struck nearly 30% of the batters he faced and an even 11 per nine innings. However, beyond the stuff, this has the chance to be a perfect marriage.
The Braves are better set up for success than any team in baseball. They aren’t going to ask too much of him, and coming to a place where the expectation is championships should only light even more of a fire under the butt of a competitor like Sale. Atlanta could also use that kind of personality in the clubhouse. It may not be the reason for their early exits over the last two years, but it has seemed that they’ve missed having personalities like Joc Pederson around since their magical 2021 World Series run. Sale may not be able to hit balls into the Chop House like Pederson, but he can provide a competitive spark that is contagious throughout the clubhouse, something that can carry a team through the most difficult moments of October.
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Photographer: Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire
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