How Should the Sox Utilize Sale This Season?
- Thread starter j-man
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Honestly, I think Sale needs to start given his flashes of former glory and how thin our rotation is but the idea of him pitching out of the bullpen again is an interesting thought that I hadn‘t considered. Not sure how the irregular schedule would work with his age and health but it’s intriguing.
Sale is the #2, at least, right now, no? Hell, his 2.1 fWAR last year ranked behind only Crawford, and ahead of Bello. I don’t see how moving him to the pen makes any sense given the current pitchers under control.
While I’m not sure where I stand on this issue I think the counterpoint is that Sale is made of glass and this would maybe make that next injury less likely to hit
Sox need two legit starters - hopefully one is Yamamoto.
And if - this is an enormous IF - Chris Sale can give them 160 innings of 85% of peak Chris Sale, then suddenly their rotation is....amazing.
But there's a lot of question marks in that equation.
And if - this is an enormous IF - Chris Sale can give them 160 innings of 85% of peak Chris Sale, then suddenly their rotation is....amazing.
But there's a lot of question marks in that equation.
IDK, maybe so, maybe not? Maybe not throwing 85 pitches in an outing would help. Or maybe making 60 appearances would have the opposite effect. Personally, I feel Sale the last two years when out there has been either hot or cold, not much inbetween. Survivable for a starter-- the bad games are lost cause, the good ones winnable-- not so enticing for a closer. I think regularity is the main thing you want there.
Yeah, I’m done banking on Sale for anything. It’s not his fault he’s made of glass, and I know no one is more frustrated by his inability to pitch than him, but relying on the guy for anything beyond being a cheerleader in the dugout is asking for disaster at this point. You just have to plan for him to be unavailable as sad as it is.
I think people may have over learned this lesson. Like, Sale was worth 1.7 rWAR/2.1 fWAR last season. 100ish IP of 3.80 FIP.
That’s pretty good. We need more from him, but it’s not nothing. He ranked 65th in fWAR among pitchers.
That’s pretty good. We need more from him, but it’s not nothing. He ranked 65th in fWAR among pitchers.
How does that take into consideration his replacement? It’d be nice to have 5 starters all at a 3.80 FIP but if they can only throw 100 innings then where does the other 180-220 come from?
They actually look like they could be related too.
O'Neill has had a strikeout rate of 27%, 31% (his best offensive year), 27%, and 25% the last four years. Also counterintuitively, his walk rate has been 9.6, 7.1, 9.9, 10.5% over those four years, again, with the worst rate in his best season. Being healthy, would seem to be the key.
Looking at barrels/PA, he came in at 10.6, 7, and 7.9. 10.6 would put him in the top-10 in baseball while 7.9 was tied with Freddie Freeman last year.
This is exactly how I feel about Sale @YTF and in many ways the exact reason why @Sandy Leon Trotsky.
It's obviously incredibly un-analytic and for that I apologize, but generally I think of it like this.
Which is better for a team to have - Chris Sale with his 12 starts of lets say excellence and then 20 starts where you have to cobble together innings from Matt Dermody and Kyle Barraclough or 32 starts of "alright" from a Chris Bassitt type.
I think of it as being you have an excellent chance to win 8 of those 12 starts with Sale (8-4 record) and very little chance to win those starts from guys that don't belong in the big leagues - and even if you do, you've probably decimated your bullpen to get there (so call it 7-13 in those other games). Overall makes them 15-17.
Someone like Bassitt who keeps you in games nearly all the time and takes the ball 32 games a year, making life easier on your manager, your bullpen and your team overall and you go something like 18-14. Pretty big swing, at least in my opinion. Even though one might have the awesome fWAR score but forces you to start garbage 20 times a year. The other doesn't, but generally provides you quality innings and chances to win more games.
If you have a stable of good / decent prospects at the upper minors level, you can certainly take a shot with someone like the 2021-present version of Chris Sale. But the Red Sox do not.
*It's also why I'm not crazy about giving big money to Snell. He misses about 1.5 months more often than not and walks too many guys. The high's are incredible (2018; 2023) but the lack of reliability the other 3/4 of the seasons can torpedo a lot of years pretty quickly.
Oh - since this is an O'Neill thread. I see nothing wrong with the trade, nor nothing to really get excited about either. The Sox gave up nothing of consequence for a RHH outfielder that, ostensibly at least, is a good defensive player (and I haven't watched more than a handful of innings there, I'm just going by reputation). He's almost assuredly going to get hurt this year, he gets hurt every year. Maybe he doesn't this year and you catch a great season (yay) but no way I'd invest in him long term.
But for this year, he provides some more depth in the OF and the ability to play pretty well defensively at minimum. If the Red Sox want to swing a trade for a starter, an OF with control is probably going to be a big piece (could be any of Bleis, Duran, Abreu or Rafaela) and O'Neill makes it easier to deal one and not be too thin there this year. He also costs a heck of a lot less than Hernandez, Gurriel, whatever, so that frees up two assets (money and players) to be dealt for pitching.
His upside is obviously enormous (2021) but he gets injured too often and strikes out too much to make that at all likely. But, again, nothing was given up and he reasonably fills a need, so why the eff not.
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Also just to add a bit to my position, I don't totally write Sale off as some of his injuries have been flukie. My concern is a combination of some of the past arm issues coupled with the combined loss of playing time due to all of the injuries. At 34 years old, there's a lot of rust to shake off going into every season considering the lack of continuity from season to season. As mentioned upthread, if you were to say that Sale can give you 120-150 at 85% of what he once was, sign me up. But IMO it should be considered a huge gift that lands in the team's lap AFTER securing two other pitchers to help Bello round out the top 3 of the rotation.
Yup - sure it's entirely possible Sale could do just that. IE, Stanton was a relatively healthy beast for NYY in 2021. Ellsbury had 2011 and 2013. Tyler O'Neill had 2021. The Red Sox should put themselves in a position where IF that happens with Sale, they're all of a sudden contending for the World Series. Not in a scenario where they NEED that to happen (and like four other unexpectedly great things) just to contend for WC3.
Any reason we're talking Chris Sale in the Tyler O'Neill thread? Clean it up people!
Has anyone seen O'Neill play defense? I've gotten tidbits of his high end speed and strong throwing arm, but that it's not a "Fred Lynn" look out there. Can someone provide an eyewitness description of his defense?
Has anyone seen O'Neill play defense? I've gotten tidbits of his high end speed and strong throwing arm, but that it's not a "Fred Lynn" look out there. Can someone provide an eyewitness description of his defense?
Yeah, problem is that the same is true of Houck and Whitlock, for sure. Which leaves us with Bello, maybe Crawford, and…..?
Which is why those of us saying the Sox need to add at least one SP2 and one SP3 type this off-season say that.
Those of us who don't think the "improvement can come from within" is that, at least personally, I don't think any of Whitlock, Winckowski, Murphy, Mata or Walter belong as starting pitchers in MLB, at least not on a team that has any designs on competing for championships, as we're led to believe the Sox want to be. Houck I think is still debatable, but certainly not someone I think they should "depend on."
Did we just become best friends?
It's not even so much that he was bad at it - in my opinion - it's that he didn't really even seem to legitimately TRY to be good at addressing the rotation for even the medium term. He tried to find bargain basement deals in every area of starting pitching, with the possible exception of at least he TRIED to land Eflin and there just failed, but trying to get someone for multiple years and failing was better than 2020-2023 where nothing seemed like there was even an attempt.
I seriously can't conceptualize how an organization that went from winning multiple titles with Pedro and Schilling; Beckett and Schilling; Lester and Lackey; Sale and Price suddenly decided that 21st century versions of Aaron Sele, Jeff Suppan, Brian Rose, Mark Portugal and Pat Rapp was the path to a title contender.
Maybe they couldn't spend going into 2020 or 2021 (which I don't necessarily believe going into 2021, but fine) but to do nothing for the medium term going into 2022 or 2023 is just mind-boggling.
While Sale's 2022 injuries were very flukey, his 2023 injuries seemed much more consistent with his body just breaking down from the strain of pitching. I was more optimistic going into last season because the previous injuries had been more flukes.
That said, my dream is for him to be pitching well enough in June that someone around here starts posting, "Would a two-year extension get it done?"
If Sale finishes in the top 10 of Cy Young Award voting (and is healthy, as he probably would have to be in order get in the top 10), then we won't have to give him an extension, as that would trigger his 2025 option:
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/chris-sale-7278/
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/chris-sale-7278/
- 2025 Vesting Option ($5M deferred to 2040)
vests with a Top 10 finish in 2024 Cy Young + healthy - 2025 Option Escalator (2023, 2024 Cy Young)
$2.5M for 1st
$1.5M for 2nd or 3rd
$1M for 4th or 5th
$500,000 for 6th-10th
I think there's a pretty good chance Sale has a good year. Like a solid, 3 to 3.5-win year over 130 to 150 innings.
He was quite good on a per inning basis last year, he finished the year healthy and is having a normal offseason. I'd be more worried about his home run rate, but he gave up three in the home opener, a miserable, cold and wet slugfest against Baltimore. (For further context, the runs that Félix Bautista allowed to the Sox offense that game made up 14% of the total runs he would allow all season). Without the April 1 game, Sale's got a 1.08 HR/9, which is fine. His K-BB% is still elite, and his chase rate and swinging strike rates are right in line with his peak. Another year removed from TJS will likely help.
He's not the favorite Red Sox pitcher I've ever seen but he's still got it, or got most of it. And I think we could be pretty surprised at the amount of money some other team gives him next year.
He was quite good on a per inning basis last year, he finished the year healthy and is having a normal offseason. I'd be more worried about his home run rate, but he gave up three in the home opener, a miserable, cold and wet slugfest against Baltimore. (For further context, the runs that Félix Bautista allowed to the Sox offense that game made up 14% of the total runs he would allow all season). Without the April 1 game, Sale's got a 1.08 HR/9, which is fine. His K-BB% is still elite, and his chase rate and swinging strike rates are right in line with his peak. Another year removed from TJS will likely help.
He's not the favorite Red Sox pitcher I've ever seen but he's still got it, or got most of it. And I think we could be pretty surprised at the amount of money some other team gives him next year.
Sale's last 15 starts of 2023:
15 g, 79.2 ip, 5.1 ip per start, 57 h, 30 r, 28 er, 19 bb, 95 k, 3.16 era, 0.95 whip, 10.7 k/9, .632 ops against
Sale's last 9 starts (coming off the DL):
9 g, 43.2 ip, 4.2 ip per start, 32 h, 21 r, 19 er, 14 bb, 54 k, 3.92 era, 1.05 whip, 11.1 k/9, .667 ops against
And that really came with just one really bad game - Sep 9 vs. Baltimore (4.0 ip, 6 h, 7 r).
So if he can actually throw 150 innings, he should end up being pretty good. But I just don't think he'll be able to do that. I'd baby him - give him lots of rest and every now and then just skip a start - and see if you can get the most out of him, because he's back to being a pretty good pitcher.
15 g, 79.2 ip, 5.1 ip per start, 57 h, 30 r, 28 er, 19 bb, 95 k, 3.16 era, 0.95 whip, 10.7 k/9, .632 ops against
Sale's last 9 starts (coming off the DL):
9 g, 43.2 ip, 4.2 ip per start, 32 h, 21 r, 19 er, 14 bb, 54 k, 3.92 era, 1.05 whip, 11.1 k/9, .667 ops against
And that really came with just one really bad game - Sep 9 vs. Baltimore (4.0 ip, 6 h, 7 r).
So if he can actually throw 150 innings, he should end up being pretty good. But I just don't think he'll be able to do that. I'd baby him - give him lots of rest and every now and then just skip a start - and see if you can get the most out of him, because he's back to being a pretty good pitcher.
Per WARP he's lower on the totem pole. But he's a perfectly competent back of the rotation starter (because I have better odds of winning tomorrow night's Powerball than Sale does of making 24 starts next year). Not sure his physique/throwing motion combo holds up to daily throwing out of the pen.
You know, looking at the last few years vote totals, a single first-place vote for AL Cy Young would pretty much always get a pitcher into the top 10, and some years a single lower vote would do the job as well; in 2018 and 2019 fewer than 10 pitchers even got votes. Can you imagine if a single BBWAA voter decided to trigger Sale's 2025 option just for fun?
I'd be on the phone trying desperately to trade him now.
There are plenty of smart people on this thread (and I mean that in total sincerity) that absolutely believe Sale is going to start 30 games this season and that his injuries are all fluky - and they could be very right. So I'd be finding any GMs that feel that way also, and dealing him for whatever I can get.
I'd utilize him as trade bait, plain and simple. If nobody bites, I'd look at him as the 6th starter. When he's healthy and can pitch, awesome, because he's still pretty good when he does. But I plan 5 rotation spots without him in any of them.
*I actually did know that about the NTC. I assume if you told him you planned to find 5 starters instead of him and he wasn't guaranteed a rotation spot - because he hasn't reliably filled one at any point in his extension - he'd waive said NTC. If not, at least he's not holding up another season.
There are plenty of smart people on this thread (and I mean that in total sincerity) that absolutely believe Sale is going to start 30 games this season and that his injuries are all fluky - and they could be very right. So I'd be finding any GMs that feel that way also, and dealing him for whatever I can get.
I'd utilize him as trade bait, plain and simple. If nobody bites, I'd look at him as the 6th starter. When he's healthy and can pitch, awesome, because he's still pretty good when he does. But I plan 5 rotation spots without him in any of them.
*I actually did know that about the NTC. I assume if you told him you planned to find 5 starters instead of him and he wasn't guaranteed a rotation spot - because he hasn't reliably filled one at any point in his extension - he'd waive said NTC. If not, at least he's not holding up another season.
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If Sale is on the active roster, he's starting every fifth game in 2024. Count on it. They're not going to dick him around as the 6th starter or move him to the bullpen. As long as he's healthy, he's one of the five best starters they will have because there's not a chance in the world they're adding four pitchers better than him this winter.
That's not me saying he's going to make 32 starts and throw 180+ innings. That's me saying that as long as he's healthy enough to be active, he's going to be in the rotation. They'll plan contingencies for injury because that's what they should be doing no matter who is penciled into the rotation. If he gets hurt, they'll go to that contingency. But otherwise, he's going to be a regular part of the rotation.
That's not me saying he's going to make 32 starts and throw 180+ innings. That's me saying that as long as he's healthy enough to be active, he's going to be in the rotation. They'll plan contingencies for injury because that's what they should be doing no matter who is penciled into the rotation. If he gets hurt, they'll go to that contingency. But otherwise, he's going to be a regular part of the rotation.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Sale has a better chance of making 24 starts than you do of winning tomorrow night’s Powerball.
He’s reached that threshold eight times since moving to the rotation!
29, 30, 30, 26, 31, 32, 32, 27, 25, 0, 9, 2, 20.
Are you really that confident that the next number in that sequence is under 24? Hell, the *average* is 22.5.
I don’t think it’s more likely than not—I’m aware he’s a pitcher in his 30s—but I think it’s more likely than many people seem to think.
I wouldn’t trade him. He’s one of the main sources of championship upside on the team.
If we do sign Yamamoto or Montgomery and acquire a mid-rotation type (Lugo, Imanaga, or whomever), *and* Bello continues his progression, *and* Sale can make 20+ well-timed starts, *and* Crawford doesn’t totally pumpkin, suddenly we have one of the better rotations in the sport.
A ton has to go right, of course, but each piece is plausible.
Ooohhh, the annual Chris Sale 150 IP/sub-3.00 ERA/top 5 Cy Young voting/more motivated than ever/every injury he has ever had is a fluke he won't get one this year/easily SP1/pencil him in for 25 starts, guaranteed thread.
I'm not saying you're wrong. What do I know. I also think there are probably GMs out there who think that way and would give up a decent enough prospect for 1/$10m of Chris Sale (assume we eat the remainder to get a better prospect). I'd find that team. If there are three GMs like that (which is totally plausible because there are plenty of very smart people on this board that think that way) maybe you get a little bit of a bidding war and get better prospects.
Counting on his coming back from injury (DDski who signed him to the extension in the first place after his injuries started in 2018) or his injuries being flukes (Bloom) has done a ton to cost two GMs their job and done a great job of torpedoing 3 seasons and possibly been a reason the Sox didn't add pitching that might have won them the 2021 ALCS or more. If I were in charge, I wouldn't make the same call and expect different results.
The average the last 4 years is 7.75. Hell, eliminate weird covid year and it's still 10.3. My odds are better.
Oh you keep Sale in the rotation. There's a question about it other than his health?????. If he can throw a baseball, he's best out of the bullpen.
If he can't start the season in the rotation then it means he's been injured and Pivetta should step in.
1. New Starter
2. New Starter
3. Bello
4. Crawford/Houck
5. Sale/Pivetta
Assume it'll be Pivetta. If it's Sale and he's throwing a baseball... he will be good and better than most other starters. You just can't count on him... and if New Starters 1 and 2 are say, Montgomery and Imanaga... that's still a good rotation with Pivetta at the bottom. If it's... surprise he's healthy.... Chris Sale.... it's great. But it's why they need two starters.
If he can't start the season in the rotation then it means he's been injured and Pivetta should step in.
1. New Starter
2. New Starter
3. Bello
4. Crawford/Houck
5. Sale/Pivetta
Assume it'll be Pivetta. If it's Sale and he's throwing a baseball... he will be good and better than most other starters. You just can't count on him... and if New Starters 1 and 2 are say, Montgomery and Imanaga... that's still a good rotation with Pivetta at the bottom. If it's... surprise he's healthy.... Chris Sale.... it's great. But it's why they need two starters.
The odds of winning the powerball are 1 in 300 million. Last year he made 20, and before 2020 he made 25+ for eight straight years. But to call him "back of the rotation" is just silly. His highest FIP ever is 3.8. I think all of us are so burned by how painful 2020-2022 was that we're remembering the guy as worse than he is. The dude has the highest K/9 in baseball history (per BBRef) and threw 100 innings last year. He's probably never going to be a thirty start horse but it blows my mind that people don't think he has talent anymore.
"Made of glass" seems like a bit much for a guy who's 13th among active pitchers in career innings at 1,780, to say nothing of how willingly he's sacrificed his body to win games for the Sox. If you want to speculate about his shoulder, there may be a basis for that, but UCLs and hand bones heal, as most pitchers and people who've fallen off their bike can tell you. He's not a porcelain doll, he's more like the ultimate warrior Boston fans in all sports are always clamoring for. I'd start him. If his shoulder has limited mileage left, let him use it the way he prefers.
Fair enough. I may have been overly harsh in that assessment but I do think heavily relying on him going forward, all things considered, is a risky proposition.
Yeah, the rotation will likely have several guys whose past includes enough injury to call relying on them some level of risk, and in Sale's case whatever they can do to limit the strain will reduce the temptation of fate. But IMO (FWIW) skipping starts or spreading out rest with extra starters is probably better for him and his still considerable upside than changing his routines entirely. [Not that I don't have a little nagging voice thinking he'd be a tremendous closer.]
He’s a back of the rotation starter because if he makes 20 starts again it’s going to be a sign that Boston’s winning the World Series. He has the sort of physique that you wish pitchers didn’t combined with a violent throwing motion. You have to accept that the injuries are part of the equation at his age and have a swing arm lined up to make all the starts he won’t (and luckily Boston has a couple of those guys). If you’re counting on him to be one of your top 3 starters you’re going to be in trouble.
To me, the ideal situation would be to pencil in Sale as the #4 starter on a staff with FA1, FA2, Bello, Sale, Crawford/Pivetta/Whitlock/Houck and hope that you get 15-20 starts out of him where he clocks in at a 3.50-4.00 ERA. That would be a home run to me, and we’d likely see him deliver on a pretty solid season. If you get 25+ starts with a 3.50 ERA -4.00 ERA it is a grand slam of a season, and you offer him a 2 year extension at $30M and remind him that he has basically stolen $125M from the Red Sox the last 4 years (I genuinely think he would take a below-market “make up for it” contract if he pitched healthy and well this year, based on what we know of his personality).
If there’s one guy I can see signing a “I owe you guys one.” extension at a discount, it would definitely be him.
I can't help but to wonder if tomorrow night's Powerball numbers are contained in this post.
Thank you.
Old pitchers are old pitchers. On the one hand, they’re older than most pitchers, and pitching is bad for you. On the other hand, there’s a survivorship bias at play. If you’re still starting in your mid-30s, it might be because you have certain qualities that make that possible.
Verlander had a few years in his mid-30s when he was hurt a lot and missed a lot of time. He threw 6 IP in his age 37 season, 0 at age 38. It would have been easy to write him off at that point, and many did. He’s thrown ~340 competitive IP in two seasons since.
Now Verlander’s an ace’s ace, one of a handful of active pitchers even more accomplished than Sale, and they are different in a ton of ways. But two of those many are that Sale is six years younger and has better career rate stats.
Another AL Central great of the last decade or so is Corey Kluber. He missed a season-plus in his mid-30s, came back and had a strong half season, and then… we saw what happened next last year. He’s the bear case here.
I’m not saying Sale is a lock to have a great year. He’s not at all. But he ended the season healthy and he’s throwing now. That hasn’t been the case since what, 2017? The odds are better for next year than they’ve been in years, but most of the board is acting like they’re worse.
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I think it's about where you are going to get the most quality innings out of him, and that is probably in a starting role. But I like the idea of giving him extra days off every now and then. Hell, let him miss a start and have 10 days off if the smart people think it will help.
I'm dying to know who they end up with as SP#1 and SP#2. It's freaking killing me.
I'm dying to know who they end up with as SP#1 and SP#2. It's freaking killing me.
I truly don’t get the Verlander comp. Sale started breaking down at age 29 when he missed roughly a month and a half leading into the 2018 playoffs (27 starts that year.) The next he started 25. Then had the TJS. He made 9 starts at age 32; 2 at 33 and 20 at 34.
Verlander started 33(age 29); 34(30); 32(31); 20(32 - my guess is this is what you mean); 34 (33); 33(34); 34(35); 34 (36); had TJS (37 and 38) with 28 starts (39) and 27 starts (40).
Granted, Verlander is a robot, but ages 29-34 Sale has made 83 starts. In the same age time frame Verlander made 186. They aren’t at all similar.
To be clear, if Sale had “only” missed 2020 and 2021 (ironically the same seasons as Verlander) while starting 30 games in ‘18; 30 in ‘19; then started 28 and 27 games coming back from TJS, there is no way I’d be saying “he can’t be counted on.” I‘d be saying to extend him.
But he didn’t.
The other major difference is that Verlander has a pitcher’s physique and a motion that doesn’t guarantee injury. You’re right, they’re not at all similar.
Damn you, now I have to play them. Bastard.
All of the pitchers who have finished in the top six of the CY voting seven seasons straight are pretty unique. There’s a reason Sale’s similarity scores on baseball-reference are like, John Tudor, Johan Santana, Gerrit Cole and Satchel Paige. He’s not remotely like any of those guys, and they’re not that similar either, apart from being good.
The point is that he’s an outlier, not that he’s the same as Verlander. I’ve seen them both. I know they’re different. I said as much.
Both pitchers have the same number of Tommy John surgeries, FWIW. (Different number of bike accidents and line shots off the pitching hand, though. I don’t know how many times Verlander has had COVID.)
The point is that he’s an outlier, not that he’s the same as Verlander. I’ve seen them both. I know they’re different. I said as much.
Is there such a thing? Honest question. I thought one of the sabermetric conclusions of the early 2000s was that there isn’t. All the “inverted W” talk, etc.
Both pitchers have the same number of Tommy John surgeries, FWIW. (Different number of bike accidents and line shots off the pitching hand, though. I don’t know how many times Verlander has had COVID.)