Chris Sale traded to Braves

[Bellhorn04]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

As opposed to “sunk cost” arguments on a player who clearly wasn’t sunk cost. Or “then why did Atlanta” arguments that have been answered multiple times?  Want to know why the Braves were willing to take a chance on Sale? Because they knew. Because witchcraft!! Is that what you need to hear?

Sale’s comeback is unprecedented in MLB history in multiple ways.

The Sox lacked pitching depth.  They desperately needed IP to relieve a bullpen load that was going to be burdened by a staff of young SP.  If you needed an innings eater, would Chris Sale really have been your choice?  

 

Don't you see the logic problem here?

You're saying Sale made more sense for Atlanta because they had much more starting pitching depth than us.

Our lack of starting pitching depth is the whole freakin' reason we shouldn't have done it.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The Sox didn't have to "foresee" anything.  Nobody can "foresee" anything, especially when it comes to the health and performance of baseball pitchers.

"Nobody could have seen this coming" is a classic straw man argument.

 

Then why did his end to 2023 matter?  It was only 40 IP.  And even if Sale was healthy, he was 34 then.  And he hadn’t been an effective pitcher since he was what? 29? Maybe 30?

Sure they could have kept Sale and hoped for a decent performance.  Maybe he holds it together.  Think he could give the Sox 185-195 IP with an ERA in the 4.40 range?  Would that have helped this team?

If you think so, that’s an average season for Lucas Giolito.  

 

[notin]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Don't you see the logic problem here?

You're saying Sale made more sense for Atlanta because they had much more starting pitching depth than us.

Our lack of starting pitching depth is the whole freakin' reason we shouldn't have done it.

I would agree if Sale was a contributor to that depth and not a reason to need even more of it.  A starting pitcher who gives you 150 IP over 4 years is not a pitching depth solution; he’s part of the problem.

 

If Sale made significantly less money, or Henry was still spending, this can be easily handled by other means.  But the Sox needed IP, and Sale had failed them multiple times in that department…

[Bellhorn04]

Here's another way to look at it.

In 2023, in spite of his injury issues, Sale was one of our best starters.

He was #4 in IP, only 3.1 IP behind #3 Houck.

He was #1 in FIP, #2 in WHIP, #1 in K/BB.

#2 in fWAR, #4 in bWAR.

Even in an injury-shortened season, he was one of the best we had.

If you want to say that's only because our rotation wasn't very good, well, that's part of the point. 

 

[Old Red]

After all is said, and said again Chris Sale will win a Cy Young for another team, and the Red Sox will pay that team for him to do it. Win, win for the Braves. On the other side the Red Sox are in need, and still looking for starting pitching not named Hill, and Paxton who were picked up on the side of the road by Brez when they were hitchhiking. 🤭🙈.

[Bellhorn04]

When you think about it, trading away lefty starters has always backfired on the Sox, but they keep doing it anyway.

Bill Lee

John Tudor

Bob Ojeda

Jamie Moyer

Chris Sale

We're a franchise that doesn't learn well from its mistakes.

 

[notin]

11 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

When you think about it, trading away lefty starters has always backfired on the Sox, but they keep doing it anyway.

Bill Lee

John Tudor

Bob Ojeda

Jamie Moyer

Chris Sale

We're a franchise that doesn't learn well from its mistakes.

 

Jon Lester?

[notin]

35 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Here's another way to look at it.

In 2023, in spite of his injury issues, Sale was one of our best starters.

He was #4 in IP, only 3.1 IP behind #3 Houck.

He was #1 in FIP, #2 in WHIP, #1 in K/BB.

#2 in fWAR, #4 in bWAR.

Even in an injury-shortened season, he was one of the best we had.

If you want to say that's only because our rotation wasn't very good, well, that's part of the point. 

 

I’ve said it a million times about Sale and a few other. - Sale’s problem is not talent.  
 

What were your thoughts on Sale from 2020 through 2022?  I was one of the few optimistic ones about him, and was repeatedly told “you can’t count on Sale.”  Were you optimistic about Sale in that timeframe?  Or among those who thought they couldn’t count on him?

[moonslav59]

Atlanta also "could afford" to trade Grissom without hurting their roster, even if Grissom turned out to be very good.

The Sox gave up on a great pitcher who had let us down for 4-5 years. There really should be no shame in that, but for hindsight lamenting, after Sale's spectacular comeback. On the flip side, Grissom's spectacular flop only made matters worse, although he did show signs of disappointment the year before.

On the extension given by Atlanta, Brez would have been roasted alive had he given that to Sale before the season began. We had been hearing the choir of discontent over his last contract for 4 years. 

Atlanta took a chance. The Sox paying a major chunk of the 2024 salary made it worth it to them. They must have felt his 2023 glimpse of hope was worthy of an extension, and now they look like geniuses, while we look like idiots.

I totally get the points made about why we would trade away pitching (and pay the team to take it from us,) when that was clearly our biggest weak area. That point cannot be refuted, even if it could be viewed as just a hope for pitching, as in hoping Sale could go even 120 IP. The trade flopped, horribly. No doubt. Had we had Sale, this year, and knew than a DHam-Romy-Rafaela middle infield would be decent enough and take over for Story and Grissom, we would not have felt as strong a drive to fix the 2B position that has ranked 28th-30th for 4-5 seasons, combined.

In short, on paper, the deal made some sense, if Grissom had worked out and Gio did not get hurt, but that is two "ifs." I guess there were two "ifs" on the flip side, too: Sale resurrecting himself and Grissom being a huge negative in every aspect of his play in 2024. Brez lost this trade. He did do well in the O'Neill trade, and Verdugo has done very little to call that trade a flop, before we can see the return from the young pitchers we got in return. Brez did sign Criswell and put his faith in Houck, Crawford and others, where many of us were scratching our heads.

Basically, the thought of where we'd be right now with Sale, instead of Grissom is all that matters to most fans. We'd clearly be in a playoff slot, if he repeated what he has done with ATL, with us. That is the bottom line for many, and it is how GMs are graded out: hindsight. Fairly or not.

[notin]

18 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Atlanta also "could afford" to trade Grissom without hurting their roster, even if Grissom turned out to be very good.

The Sox gave up on a great pitcher who had let us down for 4-5 years. There really should be no shame in that, but for hindsight lamenting, after Sale's spectacular comeback. On the flip side, Grissom's spectacular flop only made matters worse, although he did show signs of disappointment the year before.

On the extension given by Atlanta, Brez would have been roasted alive had he given that to Sale before the season began. We had been hearing the choir of discontent over his last contract for 4 years. 

Atlanta took a chance. The Sox paying a major chunk of the 2024 salary made it worth it to them. They must have felt his 2023 glimpse of hope was worthy of an extension, and now they look like geniuses, while we look like idiots.

I totally get the points made about why we would trade away pitching (and pay the team to take it from us,) when that was clearly our biggest weak area. That point cannot be refuted, even if it could be viewed as just a hope for pitching, as in hoping Sale could go even 120 IP. The trade flopped, horribly. No doubt. Had we had Sale, this year, and knew than a DHam-Romy-Rafaela middle infield would be decent enough and take over for Story and Grissom, we would not have felt as strong a drive to fix the 2B position that has ranked 28th-30th for 4-5 seasons, combined.

In short, on paper, the deal made some sense, if Grissom had worked out and Gio did not get hurt, but that is two "ifs." I guess there were two "ifs" on the flip side, too: Sale resurrecting himself and Grissom being a huge negative in every aspect of his play in 2024. Brez lost this trade. He did do well in the O'Neill trade, and Verdugo has done very little to call that trade a flop, before we can see the return from the young pitchers we got in return. Brez did sign Criswell and put his faith in Houck, Crawford and others, where many of us were scratching our heads.

Basically, the thought of where we'd be right now with Sale, instead of Grissom is all that matters to most fans. We'd clearly be in a playoff slot, if he repeated what he has done with ATL, with us. That is the bottom line for many, and it is how GMs are graded out: hindsight. Fairly or not.

No one is arguing this trade was a win for Boston at this point.  And probably hasn’t since maybe mid-April.  
 

I get why Breslow made the deal. I get why Atlanta did as well.  I understood all that in December.  I no longer think this is a slam dunk good deal for Boston like I did then, although I have more faith in Grissom than many others and think the Sox can recoup something.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

No one is arguing this trade was a win for Boston at this point.  And probably hasn’t since maybe mid-April.  
 

I get why Breslow made the deal. I get why Atlanta did as well.  I understood all that in December.  I no longer think this is a slam dunk good deal for Boston like I did then, although I have more faith in Grissom than many others and think the Sox can recoup something.

I agree, although I never felt it was a "slam dunk" good deal for the Sox. Initially, I questioned it, but then it kinda made sense, but I based that on the idea that we'd spend the savings pitching. No, I do not view adding Gio as that "replacement." We ended up cutting the budget, so I see it as not using the "savings."

I liked the idea of making a strong effort to fix 2B, once and for all. That part failed miserably, for 2024, anyway.

When we added Gio, I felt the innings eater would be an improvement over Sale, but I expected another SP'er addition. No Criswell, Anderson and Uwasawa  were not ones I felt was what we needed.

Had we added someone else, like Lugo, Imanaga or Flaherty, and Gio was able to give us 30 GS ate even a 4.10 ERA, we'd have been able to stomach the Grissom flop.

Nothing could help us stomach the resurrection of Sale.

[Bellhorn04]

20 hours ago, notin said:

I’ve said it a million times about Sale and a few other. - Sale’s problem is not talent.  
 

What were your thoughts on Sale from 2020 through 2022?  I was one of the few optimistic ones about him, and was repeatedly told “you can’t count on Sale.”  Were you optimistic about Sale in that timeframe?  Or among those who thought they couldn’t count on him?

I may look at things differently than some people do.  I always try to keep in mind that there's not a freaking thing I can do about how players perform or their health or what management does with them. 

I never really gave up on Sale rebounding at some point, but obviously the string of injuries was discouraging. 

One thing I have tried to emphasize is that I didn't start to get really pissed off about this trade until I realized that the only addition was Giolito.  That's when I started thinking this trade had a lot to do with the $10 million they "saved", and that our management was once again neglecting the rotation to an inexplicable and infuriating degree.

  

 

[notin]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I may look at things differently than some people do.  I always try to keep in mind that there's not a freaking thing I can do about how players perform or their health or what management does with them. 

I never really gave up on Sale rebounding at some point, but obviously the string of injuries was discouraging. 

One thing I have tried to emphasize is that I didn't start to get really pissed off about this trade until I realized that the only addition was Giolito.  That's when I started thinking this trade had a lot to do with the $10 million they "saved", and that our management was once again neglecting the rotation to an inexplicable and infuriating degree.

  

 

I didn’t mind “only Giolito” because I had more faith in Houck/Bello/Crawford than most, and my faith in Sale dwindled to absolute zero.

 

Giolito is unexciting, but he fit what I saw as their biggest need - an innings eater to take some heat off the bullpen, which could get taxed with 3 starting pitchers who each have low IP for their career high.  It was obvious August would take its toll.  
 

So Giolito was fine.  Not replacing Giolito felt like a white flag, especially since there were still plenty of options available.

 

You have repeatedly said this trade was about “saving $10mill” but I don’t see that.  Sale was due a salary of $27mill, and Boston paid $17mill of that.  But they also paid Giolito $18mill.  So this set of moves cost them.

Also reportedly the Sox paid more money to acquire Vaughn Grissom.  Reportedly the talks started with Atlanta just taking the whole salary and sending back minor league dreck, similar to an offer made previously to Bloom (not sure if it was Atlanta, but probably). 

If the Sox simply wanted to save cash, they could have dealt Sale for nothing.  And not replaced like they didn’t in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 when he wasn’t pitching for them…
 

[Bellhorn04]

40 minutes ago, notin said:

You have repeatedly said this trade was about “saving $10mill” but I don’t see that.  Sale was due a salary of $27mill, and Boston paid $17mill of that.  But they also paid Giolito $18mill.  So this set of moves cost them.

 

They were 2 separate transactions.  Boston recovered $10 million in the Sale trade.  If you want to apply that to the Giolito signing that's fine, but that's kind of an arbitrary thing.  Breslow was handed a budget and he had to make his moves fit into that budget somehow. 

Edit: do you have a link to the story about the Braves initially being willing to take on the whole $27 million while not giving up Grissom?  I never heard about that.   

If it's true, that would mean they in effect allocated $17 million of the 2024 payroll number to Grissom.

 

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I may look at things differently than some people do.  I always try to keep in mind that there's not a freaking thing I can do about how players perform or their health or what management does with them. 

I never really gave up on Sale rebounding at some point, but obviously the string of injuries was discouraging. 

One thing I have tried to emphasize is that I didn't start to get really pissed off about this trade until I realized that the only addition was Giolito.  That's when I started thinking this trade had a lot to do with the $10 million they "saved", and that our management was once again neglecting the rotation to an inexplicable and infuriating degree.

  

 

I feel the same way. Part of my thinking on the Sale trade was that we probably fixed the 2B problem (We did not) and added $10M to the winter spending budget that would surely add more than just Gio, Criswell and Chase Anderson.

We ended up cutting the opening day budget by exactly the $10M we saved on Sale, so I don't see it as using his saved money to sign Gio. I see it as using it to pay JH's yacht crew & mansion staff.

Had we spent up to the tax line, we could have signed Imanaga or Lugo, instead of Hendriks. That would probably have been enough to get us into the playoffs, especially if we took Lugo away from KCR.

The next what if was Gio's injury, but that crap happens , all the time. The Astros are ahead of us, despite having 4 of their top 6 starters out, all year or most of it.

[notin]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

They were 2 separate transactions.  Boston recovered $10 million in the Sale trade.  If you want to apply that to the Giolito signing that's fine, but that's kind of an arbitrary thing.  Breslow was handed a budget and he had to make his moves fit into that budget somehow. 

Edit: do you have a link to the story about the Braves initially being willing to take on the whole $27 million while not giving up Grissom?  I never heard about that.   

If it's true, that would mean they in effect allocated $17 million of the 2024 payroll number to Grissom.

 

 

They were two separate transactions but they were clearly linked.   If Boston didn’t move Sale, they also were very unlikely to sign Giolito…

[Old Red]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I feel the same way. Part of my thinking on the Sale trade was that we probably fixed the 2B problem (We did not) and added $10M to the winter spending budget that would surely add more than just Gio, Criswell and Chase Anderson.

We ended up cutting the opening day budget by exactly the $10M we saved on Sale, so I don't see it as using his saved money to sign Gio. I see it as using it to pay JH's yacht crew & mansion staff.

Had we spent up to the tax line, we could have signed Imanaga or Lugo, instead of Hendriks. That would probably have been enough to get us into the playoffs, especially if we took Lugo away from KCR.

The next what if was Gio's injury, but that crap happens , all the time. The Astros are ahead of us, despite having 4 of their top 6 starters out, all year or most of it.

No one has said if Gio would have been signed without that Sale trade being made. IMO I don’t think so. Add it all up like I have mentioned before, and the Red Sox spent $35M instead of $27.5M on just Sale. Not a savings at all.

[Old Red]

He did it again last night. Chris Cy Young Sale picked up his league Leading 16th win  scattering 6 hits over 7 innings with 9 strikeouts without allowing a run lowering  his league low ERA to 2.46. With those 9 strikeouts he also leads the league in that category too with 206. What a steal, and what a deal for the Atlanta Braves courtesy of the Boston Red Sox with Brez making the deal, and JH footing the bill of $17M to make it happen.🙈🤭

 

 

[Bellhorn04]

Chris is absolutely rubbing the Sox front office's faces in it.

16-3, 2.46.    

[Old Red]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Chris is absolutely rubbing the Sox front office's faces in it.

16-3, 2.46.    

All he had to do was get out of Boston, and that bad karma, and stay healthy.

[Hugh2]

Sox fans don't deserve this, but Chris Sale does.

You know who else does? John Henry. 

[mvp 78]

On 8/31/2024 at 12:36 PM, Bellhorn04 said:

When you think about it, trading away lefty starters has always backfired on the Sox, but they keep doing it anyway.

Bill Lee

John Tudor

Bob Ojeda

Jamie Moyer

Chris Sale

We're a franchise that doesn't learn well from its mistakes.

 

Bill Lee isn't a very good example for this though. 

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

Sox fans don't deserve this, but Chris Sale does.

You know who else does? John Henry. 

And it is quite possible that Henry and his budget are the real reasons Sale is gone.   

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Bill Lee isn't a very good example for this though. 

Why not?  They could have used him in 1979 at least.  If they got something in return other than Stan Papi it might have been less embarrassing. 

[Old Red]

1 minute ago, Hugh2 said:

Sox fans don't deserve this, but Chris Sale does.

You know who else does? John Henry. 

Out of the kindness of his heart JH is paying Sale’s full salary this year, and threw in an extra $1M as a bonus. What a guy.

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Why not?  They could have used him in 1979 at least.  If they got something in return other than Stan Papi it might have been less embarrassing. 

Hard to say every LHP traded was a mistake, but Lee only left to have one decent year. They were 11 games back in '79. He wasn't putting them over the top. 

[Hugh2]

6 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Out of the kindness of his heart JH is paying Sale’s full salary this year, and threw in an extra $1M as a bonus. What a guy.

John Henry can't stomach overpaying a pitcher, unless it's for 2-3 years then he'll double their salary. 

Sale he paid to do nothing for years, then traded him away right before he showed you his best. 

Henrys affinity towards shedding $ and comitting to players came back to bite him in the ass and now he has egg on his face.  Hopefully Theo slaps him a few times and tells him to stop being a scrooge. 

[Hugh2]

9 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

And it is quite possible that Henry and his budget are the real reasons Sale is gone.   

Possible? I think that's 100% the reason why Sale is gone. 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, Hugh2 said:

John Henry can't stomach overpaying a pitcher, unless it's for 2-3 years then he'll double their salary. 

Sale he paid to do nothing for years, then traded him away right before he showed you his best. 

Henrys affinity towards shedding $ and comitting to players came back to bite him in the ass and now he has egg on his face.  Hopefully Theo slaps him a few times and tells him to stop being a scrooge. 

Theo said he's spending time to work with the other entities more so than the Red Sox.

[Bellhorn04]

9 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Hard to say every LHP traded was a mistake, but Lee only left to have one decent year. They were 11 games back in '79. He wasn't putting them over the top. 

OK, agreed, but it was still a dumb trade.  Bill Lee for Stan Papi is part of Red Sox lore.  You're trying to mess up a perfectly good superstitious/downer narrative.  I was pretty high when I posted that, admittedly.