[Rosenthal] Why the Braves Concluded Chris Sale is Worth the Risk
January 3, 2024
[Rosenthal] Why the Braves Concluded Chris Sale is Worth the Risk
8 comments
Cause they’re paying him whatever 10M in 2039 is worth. He’s essentially a free SP for a guy who would be in AAA unless a starter is injured.
No brainer to me. Healthy Chris Sale is worth a hell of a lot more than an offensive bat (with not much defense) in this team. We have plenty of those already.
We need good starting pitchers and he fits the bill for a fraction of the cost other teams are asking for their guys (Cease, Burnes, Glasnow, etc.).
While I understand he’s fiscally responsible, I do wish we spent our most valuable trade piece on someone that would be with us longer than one season.
Here’s the thing. Who gives a fuck if we have to pitch him on extended rest or if he has to skip starts during the regular season. He is our 3/4 guy. We’re not riding him as our Ace, as long as we manage his workload, keep that velocity up, and he can make it to the postseason, he’s the best #3 guy you can ask for in a rotation.
I totally understand why he doesn’t, but it would be great if a writer with Rosenthal’s gravitas would go a bit beyond ERA in trying to assess why a team’s interested in someone. He got part of the way there with K rate, but I think even that undersells Chris Sale significantly, as I [wrote earlier this week](https://armchairalex2.substack.com/p/chris-sale-fragile-but-still-magnificent).
The short of it is that when you consider quality of contact (avoiding barrels and hard hit balls) along with strikeouts and walks, Sale was one of the top 20 SPs in baseball on a rate basis last year. Obviously, whether you can keep him healthy is the Vaughn Grissom-sized question, but I want to be clear that the Braves don’t need to overhaul Sale’s repertoire or hope he pitches better or something. He just needs to pitch exactly as well as he did last year to be one of the best starting pitchers in the sport.
I’ve never viewed Grissom as anything more than a contact guy without a position. He’s still young so there’s hope. Never got the impression he was a really good athlete from watching him.
Find me a free guy that’s better than Vines and Winans
8 comments
Cause they’re paying him whatever 10M in 2039 is worth. He’s essentially a free SP for a guy who would be in AAA unless a starter is injured.
No brainer to me. Healthy Chris Sale is worth a hell of a lot more than an offensive bat (with not much defense) in this team. We have plenty of those already.
We need good starting pitchers and he fits the bill for a fraction of the cost other teams are asking for their guys (Cease, Burnes, Glasnow, etc.).
While I understand he’s fiscally responsible, I do wish we spent our most valuable trade piece on someone that would be with us longer than one season.
Here’s the thing. Who gives a fuck if we have to pitch him on extended rest or if he has to skip starts during the regular season. He is our 3/4 guy. We’re not riding him as our Ace, as long as we manage his workload, keep that velocity up, and he can make it to the postseason, he’s the best #3 guy you can ask for in a rotation.
I totally understand why he doesn’t, but it would be great if a writer with Rosenthal’s gravitas would go a bit beyond ERA in trying to assess why a team’s interested in someone. He got part of the way there with K rate, but I think even that undersells Chris Sale significantly, as I [wrote earlier this week](https://armchairalex2.substack.com/p/chris-sale-fragile-but-still-magnificent).
The short of it is that when you consider quality of contact (avoiding barrels and hard hit balls) along with strikeouts and walks, Sale was one of the top 20 SPs in baseball on a rate basis last year. Obviously, whether you can keep him healthy is the Vaughn Grissom-sized question, but I want to be clear that the Braves don’t need to overhaul Sale’s repertoire or hope he pitches better or something. He just needs to pitch exactly as well as he did last year to be one of the best starting pitchers in the sport.
I’ve never viewed Grissom as anything more than a contact guy without a position. He’s still young so there’s hope. Never got the impression he was a really good athlete from watching him.
Find me a free guy that’s better than Vines and Winans
Damn would you look at that
It’s worth it bc we’re only paying the man $500k