The Atlanta Braves have acquired storied left-handed starter Chris Sale and $17 million in money concerns from the Boston Pink Sox in alternate for younger infielder Vaughn Grissom. The groups introduced the commerce on Saturday afternoon.
Sale, 34, waived his no-trade clause to facilitate the deal. He is slated to make $27.5 million in 2024, the ultimate assured yr of his contract. The Braves will probably be chargeable for $10.5 million of that quantity. They’re going to then maintain a membership possibility value $20 million on Sale’s companies for the 2025 marketing campaign.
Under, CBS Sports activities has supplied evaluation and grades on the deal for each groups.
Braves grade: A
Sale is likely one of the most achieved lively pitchers within the majors. He is a seven-time All-Star who additionally obtained Cy Younger Award consideration in seven consecutive seasons from 2012-18. Extra just lately, he is been hampered by accidents that restricted him to simply 11 appearances from 2020-22. Fortuitously, his well being took a flip for the higher final yr, as he began 20 occasions and amassed a 4.30 ERA (106 ERA+) and a 4.31 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Groups today deal with two traits particularly with pitchers: suppressing high quality of contact and producing empty swings. Sale can nonetheless do each at above-average clips due to his 94 mph fastball and signature slider. Certainly, he ranked within the 73rd percentile or higher in each common exit velocity towards and whiff charge, based on Statcast’s calculations. In case you knew nothing else about Sale, you’d most likely really feel first rate about his probabilities of remaining a plus contributor.
That is excellent news for the Braves, who will insert Sale right into a rotation that additionally contains Spencer Strider, Max Fried, and Charlie Morton. Alternatively, you may really feel uneasy about Atlanta — a group undone final October by ill-timed harm issues — including yet one more starter with sturdiness issues. In a super world, they most likely would’ve landed somebody like Dylan Stop or Corbin Burnes as a substitute.
The catch is that certainty — or, in the case of pitchers, the phantasm of it — prices extra. Grissom, so clearly with out nation on Atlanta’s depth chart, wouldn’t alone have netted both Stop or Burnes. Perhaps the Braves ought to have ponied up — if, that’s, their farm system was deemed adequate to attract from by the White Sox and/or Brewers — however you possibly can perceive why they took this route as a substitute.
Pink Sox grade: A
Give new baseball operations boss Craig Breslow credit score. He is keen to make a daring transfer.
Grissom, 23 on Jan. 5, gave the impression to be the Braves’ shortstop of the long run presently final yr. These expectations had been set after an introduction to the majors that noticed him submit a 119 OPS+ in 41 video games in 2022. Alas, quite than take the reins the place departed free agent Dansby Swanson left them, Grissom as a substitute spent many of the season in Triple-A after struggling each on the plate and within the discipline.
Grissom batted .330/.419/.501 on the farm, offering ample cause to assume he’ll nonetheless present worth together with his bat. Defensively, it looks like a settled situation that he is not able to being a beginning shortstop. The Pink Sox will presumably plop him down at second base (with Trevor Story sticking at shortstop) and let him do his factor — an strategy that ought to work in each his and their favor.
On condition that Grissom has oodles extra group management remaining — and will not clear league-minimum compensation for a while to return — it is honest to write down that it is a transfer for the long run that may pay dividends within the current. These Pink Sox aren’t quick title threats just like the Braves are, in order that’s a wise strategy in our estimation.
The Pink Sox should once more kind out their rotation state of affairs following Sale’s departure. On Friday, Boston signed veteran starter Lucas Giolito to a two-year contract with the hope that he can bounce again from a down yr. Breslow now has extra cause to dip into the free-agent market once more.
