What Chris Sale adds to the Atlanta Braves and one big question | Bill Shanks

There we were, sitting and waiting for the sixth-best team in college football to play Saturday afternoon, when Atlanta Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos made one of his surprise, out-of-nowhere trades.

Finally, the Braves got their playoff starting pitcher, acquiring seven-time All-Star left-hander Chris Sale from the Boston Red Sox for Vaughn Grissom, the player without a role on the Atlanta roster.

Sure, this would be great if this was 2019 and Sale was coming off seven straight seasons of being in the top six of the Cy Young voting in the American League. He averaged 30 starts and had a 2.91 ERA in that span. Things have changed, however, since Sale helped lead the Red Sox to the 2018 World Series title.

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In the last five seasons, including the truncated Covid season, Sale has started only 56 games and has an ERA of 4.16. He’s had a long list of injuries, including a Tommy John elbow surgery that cost him a season-and-a-half.

Sale bounced back last season with very decent numbers. Yes, he had a stress fracture in his scapula which cost him two months, but Sale made 20 starts. In his last nine starts to end the season, Sale had a 3.92 ERA, allowed 32 hits in 43.2 innings, with 14 walks and 54 strikeouts.

Videos from some of those games show his stuff was still crisp, with a mid-90s fastball and his deadly slider. Earlier in the 2023 season, his fastball was clocked at 96-98 mph.

The big question is whether Sale can stay healthy? Since having his elbow surgery, he’s had a stress fracture in his rib, had a line drive break his pinky, broke his wrist riding a bicycle, and then the scapula injury last summer. The Red Sox and Anthopoulos said Saturday that Sale is healthy, and the Braves doctors signed off on the deal.

If Sale can make 20 or more starts, he’ll slide in as a mid-rotation starter with the other veteran of the Atlanta rotation, 40-year-old Charlie Morton. Both Sale and Morton have been on the mound to end a World Series, so that experience is valuable. Max Fried and Spencer Strider will lead the rotation. That top four could be very, very good, maybe great if Sale is healthy.

This now allows Bryce Elder, who was an All-Star last summer but ran out of gas, to battle newly-signed Reynaldo Lopez for the fifth starter’s job. Maybe Elder will come to camp determined to prove he can do better this season. If Elder could win the job, Lopez could go back to the bullpen to make Atlanta’s group of relievers the best in the sport.

The addition of Sale could also allow Atlanta’s two best pitching prospects, AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep, to spend all of 2024 in Triple-A to develop and not be rushed. Plus, not using multiple prospects in a deal now for a pitcher like Dylan Cease will simply allow the farm system to strengthen as more prospects can hopefully develop this summer.

The Braves have Allan Winans, Darius Vines and Dylan Dodd in Triple-A as fill-ins, to come up when one of the starters is injured or needs a break. Keeping Smith-Shawver and Waldrep in Gwinnett the entire season could be huge in their development and readiness for 2025.

Don’t forget about Huascar Ynoa, who had Tommy John surgery in September 2022 and should be ready for spring training, and Ian Anderson, who also had the elbow surgery. Anderson might be an option late in the summer.

Remember, you can never have too much pitching, and as we found out again last season, the more options the team has with the rotation and the bullpen, the better.

This trade was a no-brainer. Grissom is likely best suited for second base, where he’ll play in Boston, but the Braves have Ozzie Albies there. The Braves were never going to put Grissom at shortstop, and the outfield was just an excuse. He had value now, and they utilized it perfectly.

Plus, the Braves will only pay Sale $500,000 in 2024. Yes, a half-million bucks. The Red Sox will pay $17 million, and then the Braves will pay the deferred amount of $10 million in 2039. Then, the Braves will also have a reasonable $20 million option for Sale in 2025, and if he does well this season, they’ll pick that up.

This will all come down to what Sale can do in October. The Braves might nurse him along a little bit to try and get him to October, but if he’s healthy they’ll likely let him go. Getting any starting pitcher, regardless of age, through a six-month regular season seems to be more of a trick than anything these days. But there has been no dispute that when Sale has been healthy, he’s been a great pitcher.

There has been one common theme to Anthopoulos’s offseason: securing pitchers who throw hard and get strikeouts. Check out the 2023 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratios for the pitchers who have been either re-signed or acquired: Pierce Johnson (12.9), Aaron Bummer (12.0), Joe Jimenez (11.7), Ray Kerr (11.7), Lopez (11.3) and Sale (11.0).

Adding a second lefty starter in Sale, along with the two new lefty relievers (Bummer and Kerr), could really help when they face lefty hitters like Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani in October.

And who knows, Anthopoulos might not be done. He’s got his new left-fielder (Jarred Kelenic) and now has added four new pitchers. With six weeks remaining until pitchers and catchers report, there’s still time to add more talent if an opportunity comes up. But punching the ticket of needing a playoff starter could have a huge payoff if Sale can stay healthy and return to form.

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This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: What Chris Sale adds to the Atlanta Braves | Bill Shanks