Chris Sale traded to Braves

[notin]

12 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I could be wrong but I thought the earlier offer for Sale came from Texas.

I wasn't one of the people who was mad at Bloom for not doing it.  I supported him on that.  I've pretty much been a Sale Pollyanna all along.  

Texas?

You might be right.  I only assumed Atlanta because they clearly remained interested.

I had my doubts any team was really even that interested in Sale.  Although the story broke in August of 2023 and the offer was reportedly in July of 2022, so Sale had a few less injuries at the time.

I wanted Sale to front that rotation in 2021, 2022 and 2023.  Of course I was always told “you can’t count on him”, probably by a lot of people who changed to “you should have counted on him.”  Maybe some of those who wanted him at closer.   If Sale just missed 2020, this contract probably works out and he’s still here.  But those repeated absences were just killers every year.

Anyway, I get why they made this trade.  Not like some others.  Jon Lester for Yoenus Cespedes? Seriously? Was Cherington even aware of that contract? Why did he take MLB talent from a team that clearly still should need it?  (Oakland did make the postseason that year.) Or Lackey for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly? Why would you trade 1.5 years of a dirt cheap starter for a struggling and injured utility infielder and a middle reliever, both already in MLB, when you’re a last place team?

 

 

[mvp 78]

The TEX trade had the Sox eating ZERO salary. 

[Bellhorn04]

9 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The TEX trade had the Sox eating ZERO salary. 

Yep, that's what was reported.

Part of me wonders if Henry was so livid about Bloom not doing this and recouping that money that he not only fired Bloom for it, but gave a directive to Breslow to get whatever he could for Sale, end of story.

Hell, Sale might have gotten 2 Sox CBOs fired, and he's now working on a third!

(Note: most of this post is meant as wild ass speculation for entertainment purposes.) 

 

 

[mvp 78]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

Yep, that's what was reported.

Part of me wonders if Henry was so livid about Bloom not doing this and recouping that money that he not only fired Bloom for it, but gave a directive to Breslow to get whatever he could for Sale, end of story.

The waffling was a big problem to Henry per what I’ve said going back to before he was fired. He half assed two straight trade deadlines and ownership was very passive aggressive about it at the time. 

[Bellhorn04]

16 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The waffling was a big problem to Henry per what I’ve said going back to before he was fired. He half assed two straight trade deadlines and ownership was very passive aggressive about it at the time. 

I'd love to hear Bloom's side of it some time, but I realize that can never happen unless he moves to a new career outside baseball.

I mean, you would think that if they were pissed about the 2022 deadline they would have conveyed a message to Bloom about picking a lane this time, and I don't know why he would have defied that.  More likely they just left it up to him I guess.

 

[Old Red]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

I'd love to hear Bloom's side of it some time, but I realize that can never happen unless he moves to a new career outside baseball.

If Bloom was still here Sale would still be here IMO. 

[Bellhorn04]

13 minutes ago, Old Red said:

If Bloom was still here Sale would still be here IMO. 

Yeah, I might as well get silly here and say the 2024 team probably would have been better if Bloom was still here.

But Breslow has made some moves for young pitching that might pay off bigly.  Or not. 

[Old Red]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yeah, I might as well get silly here and say the 2024 team probably would have been better if Bloom was still here.

But Breslow has made some moves for young pitching that might pay off bigly.  Or not. 

I hate to admit it too, but I agree that the 2024 Red Sox would have been better under Bloom just, because Sale would still be here. Even if Bloom did his usual at the trade deadline none of Brez’s pickups have done anything anyway.

[mvp 78]

49 minutes ago, Old Red said:

If Bloom was still here Sale would still be here IMO. 

Verdugo too.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I did go back and look at the early posts in this thread and re-posted a sample of them.  They showed a very mixed reaction to the trade.  Old school types like jad, iortiz, cp176 and a700 absolutely hated it!

My initial reaction was positive but after a couple of days of thinking about it I amended to say the trade would look very questionable if they did nothing more than sign Giolito.

My big problem with their approach to the 2024 rotation is really not that much different from yours, we only differ on the particulars.  You have excoriated them for not doing anything to replace Giolito when he went down.  I'm excoriating them for trading Sale when we had such a desperate need for starting pitching and clearly had no intention to do much about it..

I think some hindsight is fair in evaluating this trade not because of Sale's shockingly good health and performance, but because of the overall negligence of the rotation that we saw.  That negligence basically nullified any sense this trade might have made in isolation IMHO.

 

     

Good post. It might not have been obvious to us, at the time, but the fact that we added no SP'er after Gio went down, proves we had no desire to add one before Gio went down. The overall plan was lacking and quite frankly, sucked bigtime. I don't think any of us disagree with that. Sure, the budget limited Brez's choices, but he did choose to trade Sale, when we need pitching and then put all his financial eggs in the Gio basket. Although I was never high on Gio, I a t least understand why he chose a shorter term option like Gio with the hopes he'd give us near or over 180 IP. To me, the innings was an even higher priority than the ceiling skill level of Gio. We had a bunch of other SP'ers with no history of eating mega innings. The two we had, Bello and Pivetta had other question marks, too.

I did not like the trade, at first, but went in the opposite direction you did, the more I thought about it. I too, felt this was not the end of the moves and expected more than just Gio, Criswell and Anderson. I also felt they it was a good effort to finally fix our long-standing 2B problem. My main reason for coming around to kinda liking the trade was that I felt we'd spend up to the tax line, and the $10M saved would allow us to add more than just a Gio type SP'er. Instead of adding $6M for O'Neill, we could have added his $6M to the $10-11M of "budget space" to land a second pitcher- like maybe Lugo or Imanaga. Had we done that, we'd be in the playoff hunt, right now. We might even be sitting in a playoff favorite position, right now.

The overall plan, even within the limited budget context was a failure in foresight, and horrific in hindsight.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yep, that's what was reported.

Part of me wonders if Henry was so livid about Bloom not doing this and recouping that money that he not only fired Bloom for it, but gave a directive to Breslow to get whatever he could for Sale, end of story.

Hell, Sale might have gotten 2 Sox CBOs fired, and he's now working on a third!

(Note: most of this post is meant as wild ass speculation for entertainment purposes.) 

 

 

B-I-N-G-O !

I do think Sale was a goner, even if we kept Bloom.

I also think Dugo was a goner, no matter who are 2024 GM/CBO was.

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Verdugo too.

Not so sure about this. Dugy, and Bloom had a meeting out on the field after a game last year before he was fired, and the report was Dugy didn’t appear to happy with what Bloom was telling him.

[Old Red]

20 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

B-I-N-G-O !

I do think Sale was a goner, even if we kept Bloom.

I also think Dugo was a goner, no matter who are 2024 GM/CBO was.

If the report was true that Texas offered to trade for Sale, and take on his whole contract, and Atlanta was interested in Sale last year too, and neither happened I don’t know what would lead anyone to believe Bloom would have done it this year.

[Maxbialystock]

3 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yep, that's what was reported.

Part of me wonders if Henry was so livid about Bloom not doing this and recouping that money that he not only fired Bloom for it, but gave a directive to Breslow to get whatever he could for Sale, end of story.

Hell, Sale might have gotten 2 Sox CBOs fired, and he's now working on a third!

(Note: most of this post is meant as wild ass speculation for entertainment purposes.) 

 

 

And you're definitely entertaining!   DD signed Sale to the long-term contract, after which Sale stopped pitching and DD got fired.  CB kept Sale around almost certainly because there wasn't much else to do with him, plus in 2021, 2022, and 2023 there was always the possibility he could pitch.  He did in fact pitch all 3 seasons, just not much until 2023.  So, honestly, I don't think CB was fired because of Sale--but probably was fired because he was a bad fit for the Sox or simply incompetent. 

Breslow looks great on paper, but so far hasn't done much good and is the proud owner of one of the worst moves in MLB in the last five years:  dumping Sale, who is now a Cy Young candidate for the Braves while the Sox are paying him $17M this season.  Breslow instead signed Giolito, who struggled the last month of last season and has yet to pitch one inning for the Sox while being paid $19M.  

[Old Red]

10 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

And you're definitely entertaining!   DD signed Sale to the long-term contract, after which Sale stopped pitching and DD got fired.  CB kept Sale around almost certainly because there wasn't much else to do with him, plus in 2021, 2022, and 2023 there was always the possibility he could pitch.  He did in fact pitch all 3 seasons, just not much until 2023.  So, honestly, I don't think CB was fired because of Sale--but probably was fired because he was a bad fit for the Sox or simply incompetent. 

Breslow looks great on paper, but so far hasn't done much good and is the proud owner of one of the worst moves in MLB in the last five years:  dumping Sale, who is now a Cy Young candidate for the Braves while the Sox are paying him $17M this season.  Breslow instead signed Giolito, who struggled the last month of last season and has yet to pitch one inning for the Sox while being paid $19M.  

Good post as usual Max. JH must hate paying out millions every year to players that aren’t playing for the Red Sox especially a CY Young Winner, or not playing at all, because of a s*** happens injury.

[moonslav59]

29 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

And you're definitely entertaining!   DD signed Sale to the long-term contract, after which Sale stopped pitching and DD got fired.  CB kept Sale around almost certainly because there wasn't much else to do with him, plus in 2021, 2022, and 2023 there was always the possibility he could pitch.  He did in fact pitch all 3 seasons, just not much until 2023.  So, honestly, I don't think CB was fired because of Sale--but probably was fired because he was a bad fit for the Sox or simply incompetent. 

Breslow looks great on paper, but so far hasn't done much good and is the proud owner of one of the worst moves in MLB in the last five years:  dumping Sale, who is now a Cy Young candidate for the Braves while the Sox are paying him $17M this season.  Breslow instead signed Giolito, who struggled the last month of last season and has yet to pitch one inning for the Sox while being paid $19M.  

I do think not trading Sale might have been the final straw on Bloom's firing, but we may never know for sure. I also think if Bloom stayed, Sale and Dugo would have been traded. It's not a 100% sure, but I think JH wanted them gone.

I'm pretty sure JH & Co. had to okay the Gio signing, and they did based on the idea that theyw ere fed up with injury risk pitchers- like Sale, Kluber, Richards, Wacha, Hill, Paxton and others, but then again, bringing back Paxton and Hill, this summer kinda counters that theory.

The worst part is Gio got hurt, while Sale is already at  his most IP since 2017. Then, the youngster Slaten gets hurt after being one of our best pen arms for the first half of 2024. Martin implodes and others predictably lose steam as they pass their career highs in IP.

We need to plan on pitcher injuries, while continuing to try and add durable and skilled pitchers and hope they will not be the next Gio.

 

[Old Red]

Another Sale Day yesterday with Chris Cy Young Sale pitching 6 strong innings, and allowing 2 hits with 7 K’s, and not allowing a run lowering his league leading ERA to 2.38, and leads the league with 213 K’s. He didn’t notch his league leading 17th win as the Braves couldn’t hold a 1-0 lead. All in all not bad for a 35 year old who is pitching like a 25 year old. Can you believe it? Atlanta can.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, Old Red said:

Another Sale Day yesterday with Chris Cy Young Sale pitching 6 strong innings, and allowing 2 hits with 7 K’s, and not allowing a run lowering his league leading ERA to 2.38, and leads the league with 213 K’s. He didn’t notch his league leading 17th win as the Braves couldn’t hold a 1-0 lead. All in all not bad for a 35 year old who is pitching like a 25 year old. Can you believe it? Atlanta can.

Don't worry, Red. The Sox don't have any more pitchers good enough to trade away this winter who they will pay to be superstars for other teams next season...

... especially to a place where Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park is equidistant between the new ballpark and the pitcher's hometown.

[Bellhorn04]

Absolutely incredible how well he's been pitching.  And he's been getting better as the season goes on.

[moonslav59]

He is Chris Freakin' Sale, again!

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

He is Chris Freakin' Sale, again!

Bought, and PAID for by the Boston Red Sox, but not played for. It couldn’t have gone much worse for Boston, and much better for Atlanta.

[Old Red]

Another Sale Day last night as Chris CY YOUNG Sale gave up 1 run over 6IP while giving up 5 hits, and striking out 6 against the Dodgers. Sale picked up his MLB leading 17th win to make it 17-3, and lowered his MLB leading ERA to 2.35, and also notched his 219th K, which also leads MLB. Bought, paid for, and gift wrapped by Brez, and JH to the Atlanta Braves. Can you believe it?🤭🙈

[Bellhorn04]

They really sold Chris short.  Pun very much intended.

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

They really sold Chris short.  Pun very much intended.

Brez for executive of the year. Not for the Red Sox, but for the Atlanta Braves.🤫

[Bellhorn04]

6.4 fWAR

6.3 bWAR

This trade is going to end up a 6-7 win difference-maker this year.

[moonslav59]

It really has been a big kick in the gut of Sox Nation.

When you look at as a one-two gut punch with the Betts trade, it sickens me.

We'd be 2-3 games up in the WC race and breathing down BAL's neck for 2nd in the division.

Visiting this thread should have a health warning attached to it.

[Randy Red Sox]

On 8/31/2024 at 7:43 AM, Old Red said:

B O O M! Not only did it blow up, but the Red Sox footed the bill for it to blow up. Boom, Boom!

trust Old Red to tell it LIKE IT IS !!

[Randy Red Sox]

And just to help us cry in our beer here are Sale's stats as of today---   17-3 2.25 era with a 1.002 whip and 219 K's in 179 innings.  Nice trade Craig.  Enjoy paying that 17 mil Mr Henry

[notin]

On 9/7/2024 at 1:45 PM, Maxbialystock said:

And you're definitely entertaining!   DD signed Sale to the long-term contract, after which Sale stopped pitching and DD got fired.  CB kept Sale around almost certainly because there wasn't much else to do with him, plus in 2021, 2022, and 2023 there was always the possibility he could pitch.  He did in fact pitch all 3 seasons, just not much until 2023.  So, honestly, I don't think CB was fired because of Sale--but probably was fired because he was a bad fit for the Sox or simply incompetent. 

Breslow looks great on paper, but so far hasn't done much good and is the proud owner of one of the worst moves in MLB in the last five years:  dumping Sale, who is now a Cy Young candidate for the Braves while the Sox are paying him $17M this season.  Breslow instead signed Giolito, who struggled the last month of last season and has yet to pitch one inning for the Sox while being paid $19M.  

Bloom had an opportunity to deal Sale to Texas in 2022 with Texas taking the entire contract and giving nothing back.  Reportedly Bloom wanted a decent prospect pack, and Teaxas refused, so the deal never happened.

 

As for Breslow, maybe if Sale had pitched occasionally between 2020 and 2023, he’d still be here…

[notin]

7 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

And just to help us cry in our beer here are Sale's stats as of today---   17-3 2.25 era with a 1.002 whip and 219 K's in 179 innings.  Nice trade Craig.  Enjoy paying that 17 mil Mr Henry

You think Henry cares?

The $17mill he’s paying Sale is the least money he’s paid Sale to not pitch for him.  I think the $100ish paid to Sale the previous 4 years was probably more bothersome…