The Sale trade was a good start. Will the Red Sox continue to be bold in building for 2024?
It was never better for Chris Sale than on a Sunday night at Dodger Stadium.
The Red Sox cemented their fourth World Series title this century with the left-hander on the mound. His filthy slider veering in toward the shoetops of Manny Machado clinched a 2018 championship for Boston, the finishing touch on one of the best teams in franchise history.
That chapter was officially closed Saturday afternoon when the Red Sox dealt Sale and cash considerations to the Atlanta Braves for infielder Vaughn Grissom. Boston sent its former ace and a reported $17 million, according to The Boston Globe, to Atlanta for a 22-year-old prospect who immediately slots in as a leading candidate to play second base beginning as soon as the 2024 season.
Sale was the ace Boston needed when it made a blockbuster trade with the White Sox prior to the 2017 season. David Price and various other starters weren’t the hammer atop the rotation that could strike fear into opposing hearts over six months of the regular season or during a short series in the playoffs. Hiccups in 2017 against the Houston Astros turned to triumph against the New York Yankees, those same Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers the following October.
The Red Sox ultimately didn’t part with anything all that damaging to acquire Sale. Dave Dombrowski, the prior president of baseball operations, had the foresight to withhold Rafael Devers and include Yoan Moncada as the centerpiece of a multiplayer deal with Chicago. It was a stroke of adroit system evaluation and good fortune that Devers wound up a superior talent and contributor to Moncada, Michael Kopech and anyone else who was sent to the South Side in a seismic transaction.
Sale was brilliant in 2017 and shined prior to the All-Star break in 2018 before breaking down. His career since has stalled — just 56 starts and 298⅓ innings pitched, a disappointing return on a five-year, $145-million extension Sale inked late in spring training in 2019. Dombrowski, with the blessing of ownership, wound up paying Sale for past performance.
More: Bill Koch grades the Red Sox position-by-position as season winds down.
What does this mean for Boston’s immediate future? You could say losing Sale strips the Red Sox of a potential rotation option for next season, but that ignores how unreliable he’s been in recent years. Accountability and honesty in the clubhouse, which Sale displayed to occasionally uncomfortable lengths while savaging his own ineffectiveness, doesn’t fill innings on the mound.
Grissom looked blocked by second baseman Ozzie Albies and shortstop Orlando Arcia on Atlanta’s depth chart. He made a bright debut across a short sample in 2022, hammered Triple-A pitching to the tune of a .921 OPS in 2023 and has shown the sort of glove that could stick defensively on the right side on the infield. Grissom is under team control through the 2029 season and could offer Boston the needed flexibility — through being flipped himself or in future trade talks involving infield prospects such as Marcelo Mayer, Ceddanne Rafaela, Nick Yorke and Chase Meidroth — to pursue necessary help in other areas.
Those who think Sale’s contract handcuffed the Red Sox going forward turn a blind eye to their payroll structure from that last title winner. Boston soldiered on with minimal contributions from high-priced veterans such as Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval and Dustin Pedroia, to name a few. The organization’s place in one of the sport’s supreme markets allows for such mistakes to be pushed aside by further internal projections and additional spending.
Is breaking through the Competitive Balance Tax such an onerous decision? Former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom might have operated with more urgency to slip under that first threshold in 2022 if such spending was indeed so damning in the long term. Bloom dithered at the trade deadline that season long enough to both stay above that number — incurring penalties imposed by Major League Baseball — and miss the playoffs for the second of three times in his underwhelming tenure.
What this move signals is a willingness from current chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to be bold. That’s so sorely needed after four years of comparative paralysis under Bloom. The Red Sox failed while allegedly attempting to operate on dual tracks of building a farm system and still competing in the big leagues — that second pursuit, with three American League East last-place finishes in four years, fell woefully short.
Boston still has far more work to do if it hopes to even resemble a contender in 2024. Lucas Giolito might bump a fringe starting pitching contender to the bullpen, but the right-hander's last two seasons hardly inspire much hope for an elite return on the two-year, $38.5-million deal he reportedly agreed to earlier in the weekend. The Red Sox need superior mound options ahead of Brayan Bello and a further offensive boost to even be considered alongside current title favorites such as the Dodgers, Braves, New York Yankees and Astros.
This trade and the additional time from now until spring training suggest such reinforcements could eventually arrive. It’s exactly the statement of intent Boston needed. What follows will further inform us just how seriously the Red Sox consider declining performance on the field, an ongoing dip at the box office, tanking television ratings and a festering distrust among what have traditionally been some of the sport’s most loyal fans.
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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Trading Chris Sale to the Braves was a needed move for the Red Sox
