If you ask Fangraphs though it's significantly in Sale's favor (20.5 to 16.8), plus Moncada cost an extra $60m, so let's call it a tie. Guess we'll need an unbiased third party to resolve the matter.
Oh thanks Manny, good of you to volunteer.
Thank You Chris Sale
- Thread starter mr_smith02
- Start date
Oh thanks Manny, good of you to volunteer.
I tried to push the YouTube button to make it play, but that was an advertisement in the stadium.
2/$38 million extension. Good for him. Hope he stays healthy to beat LA.
https://www.batterypower.com/2024/1/4/24025154/braves-sign-chris-sale-to-two-year-38-million-deal
https://www.batterypower.com/2024/1/4/24025154/braves-sign-chris-sale-to-two-year-38-million-deal
How does the new deal play into the deferred 10 million in 2039? Are we still paying all of it, but now they just use it toward his new deal of 38 mil?
$10 m deferral is gone, atlanta was on the hook for it, not boston.
all we were on the hook for is 17 mil this year and that is still the case.
sale got his 10 m deferred money 15 years earlier and another 10 m or so to pitch next year, atlanta got a second year of control and a lower ctb number this year.
Assuming that the $10m deferral is $7m in present value (I haven't done the math), it's basically a 1/$15m extension, slightly less than the $20m option on his original contract.
That he's finished in the top 6 in CYA voting 7 times in a row is pretty wild. So far as I can tell, Maddux, Scherzer, Kershaw did it (he won a bunch)... and that's all I can find from the past 30 years. Randy, Schilling, Pedro, Mussina, Clemens, Verlander, Glavine, Greinke, Halladay all never did that.
Chris Sale has a 1 - 3 record and 6.35 ERA in the postseason for his career. That of course includes his “non-diminished” years. Kershaw is 13 - 13 with a 4.49 ERA.
An aside, but Sale was a non factor in the 2018 playoffs. He was 6th on the team in innings pitched because, like every year, his performance diminished or he was hurt late in the season. In 5 World Series innings pitched he allowed 3 earned runs (5.40 ERA), had no wins, and a 1.400 WHIP.
I suppose I should be surprised he caught no flak here for not starting the World Series deciding game 6 on his regular rest with just 4 innings pitched in his previous start and forcing David Price to go on short rest. Especially since he was healthy enough to close the game. But I’m not. I do wonder, however, how the members here would have reacted if the situation was reversed.
Well Sale has a small sample, but diminished Sale was in fact better than healthy Kershaw in the 2018 Series when the supposedly generational pitching star took two more dismal losses along with a 7.36 ERA vs the Sox. I get that Kershaw has had his moments but for a guy with 3 CYAs and one MVP, his postseason performances have been one of the biggest reasons why the Dodgers keep crashing out.
Seeing lots of praise for Anthopolous and this extension for Sale. What? The Braves already had a team option for next year. What magical powers does Chris Sale's agent possess to make GMs do these things?
I imagine the magical powers are Sale's ability to pitch a baseball really really well.
With the well-documented asterisk of rarely being available the last few years to share those skills with the world. I'm trying to understand why Anthopolous would not wait at least a few months into the season before making this commitment. My only guess is that Sale and his agent agreed to waive his no trade clause with the condition that he would get this extension.
Would you have been happy with the Sox agreeing to this extension with Sale?
Obviously Atlanta's competitive window is now (especially with Fried and Morton likely leaving) but I do not have any confidence that Sale will deliver 120 competitive innings this year or that he will be available to pitch effectively in the playoffs. If I was an Atlanta fan, with all of those team-friendly deals, I would be pissed that the team is bargain hunting right now rather than paying market rate for a top starter.
It's a good reminder that not everyone views things through the same lenses as we do.
Probably not. . .but I have no real insight into the most recent medical information, or if anything has changed (or not) on Sale's end that would make me more or less concerned with his ability or health.
Even now, if we had Sale for $8M taking up a roster spot. . .maybe. And an extension. . .maybe.
But, more importantly as you pointed out, ATL is in a different spot than the Sox are.
For ATL it absolutely makes sense. I mean, think about this hypothetical: Sale is on another team for the past few years and we wanted a number 5 with upside. . .well, Sale beats the pants off a Kluber type and is more similar to a Paxton-type. Now, if you change the hypothetical to the Sox went to the post-season last year, and still need that final rotation piece and only have to give up Yorke to get Sale. . . I think the question, "Would you have been happy with the Sox agreeing to this extension with Sale?" would have a lot more "yes" answers.
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I would be very happy if the Sox were in a position to have Sale as their SP4/5. The risk in a bottom of the rotation that has almost elite production when available would be worth it so long as I have many, many quality innings above him in the rotation.
I'm certainly interested in following his performance to to understand in retrospect if Sale's struggles with the Sox post-2018 were fully a byproduct of coming off injury/precursor to his next injury, or if he just doesn't have the stuff anymore. I am guessing a combination of both, but could see him really stepping it up this year for one last rally before alternating DL stints the rest of his time in ATL.
Sale has still been good when healthy though, so it doesn't feel like bargain hunting. They're just better set up to absorb his time on the IL. If we were in a similar position I'd have been fine with this deal, feels like maybe an overpay given his likely playing time, but pretty great value if you actually get 1+ full healthy seasons from him.
There is the trade, which I can understand for Atlanta as they are in a good position to try and coax a productive season out of Sale and they had a team option at a reasonable price if he shows he can throw 140+ effective innings. If I was a Braves fan, I would have wanted more of a sure thing since the team is really well positioned to win this year, rather than hoping for Sale to rebound after 4 underwhelming seasons. But, to get back to my question, why give the extension now? They had Sale on a team friendly deal for this season and had a team option for next season. I am baffled why they would make this deal right now, for the limited benefit of a team option for Sale in three years when he will be 37 years old.
It makes less sense to me than DD signing him for 5/145 when they still had a year left of control. It's baffling.
Great point. It seems very possible that an extension was a condition of Sale agreeing to the trade in the first place.
Despite those team-friendly deals, they're over the CBT threshold for 2024 already. They're very likely hitting the peak of their spending ability. Last season was the first one in which they'd paid luxury tax in 25 years. This isn't a team with a deep-pocketed billionaire behind the scenes. They're a publicly traded company. There is a limit to what they are able to spend.
Yes, they are a public company, which is why, unlike the other teams, we know exactly what they earn: $535 million in "baseball revenue" alone in 2022, which excludes additional revenue from real estate development and the rise in the general valuation of the team. There is a limit to what they can spend, but it sure as hell shouldn't be the CBT threshold. But, of course, that's every team sans the Mets and Dodgers in the era of soft collusion.
Well, presumably they acquired him because they believe in him to return to form. If he returns to form, it stands to reason you'd be picking up that option. If they go that route, it's $27.5m for '24, and $20m for '25, for $47.5m/2 (with some deferrals, but, that's the cash commitment). This route also implies a quiet vote-of-no-confidence in the star pitcher you just acquired, probably not ideal for future negotiations with said pitcher. Hard to know what a 1 year contract tacked on to the end of that looks like, but, safe to say, if the Braves were interested, it means Sale was at least decent, and we can safely pencil that '26 year in for at least $20m, given that's the current QO #, and potentially as much as, say, $30m? So call that optimistically a $67.5m/3 commitment, with a chance of being a higher, or longer, or both, or of not even being able to keep him for '26.
By comparison, the extension, which is a restructuring as much as an extension as far as I can tell from this ESPN report, looks pretty good. They pay $16m in '24 and $22m in '25, for a total of only $38/2. So they save about $10m right off the bat just by essentially picking the option up now. That alone might justify it if they're getting close to their payroll ceiling as others have reasonably speculated. But they also get a $18m option on '26 with no team buyout. So if he flames out, all they really did was pick up the '25 option in advance on steep discount, not a horrific loss. But if he returns to form (which obviously they're expecting) they get him at $38/2+$18/1? That's a damn sight better than the alternative, in terms of flexibility on '26 and in terms of the overall price on both the two ($47.5 vs $38) and three ($67+ vs $56) year versions of this contract.
The only way this extension is regrettable is if Chris Sale is so bad that the Braves would not have extended him at $20/1. That's not an impossible outcome I guess, but, it feels like a pretty good bet for them. An even better bet when you consider their obvious expectation that Sale is going to be good for them. An even better bet when you realize that the increase in guaranteed dollars (~$11m) is still less than the Red Sox sent to Atlanta along with Sale (~$17m). They're only actually committed to $21/2 with a $18/1 extension available.
I hated the Sale extension here when it happened, it didn't make sense for the team construction. But Atlanta is in almost the precisely opposite position the Sox were in then; all their young stars are locked in, famously. This increases the upside of a bet they already like, and pretty significantly, while only slightly expanding the downside. If Chris Sale sucks/is hurt, it's a $38m loss instead of a $27.5m loss. Meh. Vaughn's performance is far more likely to be the thing that makes this trade look good or bad from ATL's perspective than Sale's specific salary investment.
Here's a good breakdown of the salary and luxury tax impacts of the Sale extension:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Braves/comments/18yv2ym/chris_sale_extension_and_its_luxury_tax/
But my gut feeling continues to be that Sale insisted on the extension: “It also allows me to feel a little bit more comfortable, like I’m going to be here for a couple of years so I can kind of get settled in and not really bounce around. I’m married and have three sons. So, one-and-dones aren’t really too good for us.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Braves/comments/18yv2ym/chris_sale_extension_and_its_luxury_tax/
But my gut feeling continues to be that Sale insisted on the extension: “It also allows me to feel a little bit more comfortable, like I’m going to be here for a couple of years so I can kind of get settled in and not really bounce around. I’m married and have three sons. So, one-and-dones aren’t really too good for us.”
Exactly. Thanks Fris.
He surely won some first half-season games in 2017-18, but I’m thrilled to see him gone. Price outpitched Sale in both the 2017-18 postseasons, but for some reason Price (and not Sale) is remembered as the guy who got injured a lot and couldn’t perform in the playoffs.