Chris Sale traded to Braves

[Old Red]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

As mvp suggested and others had before, they were better positioned if Sale went down.  Boston had Cooper Criswell (eventually).  Atlanta had a slew of MLB-ready pitching prospects to step in, one of whom was already an MLB All Star…

Like I said earlier that Atlanta were interested in Sale LAST year, so this wasn’t something new. I guess Brez was more easy to deal with, and was more generous with the $17M.

[Duran Is The Man]

29 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Braves didn't know s***. They just had some financial ability to absorb Sale's contract and knew his upside could push them over the top into the upper echelon of teams considering their injury issues with starters. If it didn't work out, it wasn't going to tank them as they have lots of depth starters and could still be relatively competitive. Sale was a lottery ticket and it worked out this year.

exactly. it was a low-risk move on their part with the potential for a huge upside.

[mvp 78]

21 minutes ago, notin said:

That’s been my viewpoint all along.  But you said it more succinctly.

 

The only team that I wonder if they should have “known something” is the Sox concerning Giolito.  I don’t know when his problems started, but they certainly would explain his poor ending to 2023.  Was that unrelated?  Did they see something and decide it was inconsequential?  Or “we see that tear all the time?”  

With Gio, we all played therapist and assumed his issues were personal related due to his divorce and not health related. Maybe it was both? 

[notin]

2 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Like I said earlier that Atlanta were interested in Sale LAST year, so this wasn’t something new. I guess Brez was more easy to deal with, and was more generous with the $17M.

Texas was interested in Sale in 2022.  When did Atlanta ask about Sale prior to December, 2023?

[notin]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

With Gio, we all played therapist and assumed his issues were personal related due to his divorce and not health related. Maybe it was both? 

Maybe.

 

Its always a question when a pitcher struggles and then suddenly needs TJ…

[notin]

4 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

exactly. it was a low-risk move on their part with the potential for a huge upside.

Atlanta had pitching with or without Sale.  Boston did not…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Are there any Red Sox fans here who really think the 2025 starting rotation will improve with a Giolito comeback -- whenever that is -- from a major injury? Is there any reason to be confident he'll be as good/bad as he was the last year he pitched?

... that is, besides all the word salads that Kennedy, Breslow and Bailey will feed us about Gio all winter...

(... maybe John Henry was the most honest when he said our expectations are just too high).

... or maybe Lucas' elbow was secretly hurting in '24 -- which he didn't want to admit, with free agency looming -- and he'll emerge even better soon from the corrective surgery.

 

[Old Red]

9 minutes ago, notin said:

Texas was interested in Sale in 2022.  When did Atlanta ask about Sale prior to December, 2023?

It was reported when the Sale trade was made by the Atlanta HOBO, which has been mentioned more than once on here. Not new news.

[Old Red]

4 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Are there any Red Sox fans here who really think the 2025 starting rotation will improve with a Giolito comeback -- whenever that is -- from a major injury? Is there any reason to be confident he'll be as good/bad as he was the last year he pitched?

... that is, besides all the word salads that Kennedy, Breslow and Bailey will feed us about Gio all winter...

(... maybe John Henry was the most honest when he said our expectations are just too high).

... or maybe Lucas' elbow was secretly hurting in '24 -- which he didn't want to admit, with free agency looming -- and he'll emerge even better soon from the corrective surgery.

 

Gio back, and Whit probably thrown back into the rotation again. Then you’d have to hope Bello, Kut Man, and Houck can duplicate their being able to duplicate the amount of starts, and innings again next year. Sound like a plan coming together?

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

6 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Gio back, and Whit probably thrown back into the rotation again. Then you’d have to hope Bello, Kut Man, and Houck can duplicate their being able to duplicate the amount of starts, and innings again next year. Sound like a plan coming together?

"Internal bracing" -- the stand-up double for elbows and Red Sox fans everywhere!

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

2 hours ago, notin said:

While it was far from inevitable, Price was 31 years old with a long history of pitching high IP when he signed a 7 year deal, so injuries were certainly not a long shot.

 

My hope was he would pitch 3 years injury-free and opt out.  His physical issues unfortunately started in year two…

Exactly my point, injury history (or should I say lack thereof) doesn't guarantee anything

[dgalehouse]

When signing pitchers, you need some good judgment and a whole lot of luck. It seems to me that they are breaking down at a higher rate than ever before. 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Are there any Red Sox fans here who really think the 2025 starting rotation will improve with a Giolito comeback -- whenever that is -- from a major injury? Is there any reason to be confident he'll be as good/bad as he was the last year he pitched?

... that is, besides all the word salads that Kennedy, Breslow and Bailey will feed us about Gio all winter...

(... maybe John Henry was the most honest when he said our expectations are just too high).

... or maybe Lucas' elbow was secretly hurting in '24 -- which he didn't want to admit, with free agency looming -- and he'll emerge even better soon from the corrective surgery.

 

I think it helps adding Gio to the mix, but we subtracted Pivetta, so maybe it's close to a wash.

Last full seasons highest fWARs

5.2 Giolito '19, 4.1 in '21 (2.0 in short '20 season) 1.8 in '22 and 0.9 in '23

3.9 Houck '24

2.0 Bello '24

1.9 Crawford '24 (2.4 in '23)

1.1 Criswell '24

0.6 Fitts (4GS) + Priester (1GS)

 

* 1.6 Whitlock '21 (pen)

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

Exactly my point, injury history (or should I say lack thereof) doesn't guarantee anything

When we traded for Sale, many felt he was minutes from a major injury.

His first year, he had 214 IP and 32 GS. He never gave us more tan 158 IP, after that. His 27 GS in 2018 were essential to our record-breaking season, but his 2019 numbers in 25 GS dropped a lot.

Nobody is a certain 30+ GS/180+ IP SP'er, but I do think a good GM works to find pitchers who are most likely to do just that. It's almost more important than he skill level- ALMOST.

I think Brez tried to do just that with Gio. He swung and missed badly, but how much of it was just hard luck is not easy to determine.

The double miss between Gio and Sale was disastrous to our chances, this year. If he just went 1-2, we are likely still playing.

[notin]

3 hours ago, dgalehouse said:

When signing pitchers, you need some good judgment and a whole lot of luck. It seems to me that they are breaking down at a higher rate than ever before. 

Rather than luck, maybe the Sox could try to add depth.  They signed two starting pitcher last year that started as much as one game for them.  Criswell and Chase Anderson, who started one game. They signed 0 starting pitchers with MLB experience to minor league contracts.  They did themselves no favors on the pitching depth front. 

Until Fitts came up in September, not a single farm product started a game.  Priester was their second prospect to get a start, and he started the last game of the year.

They added a couple starters midseason - James “Broken Maple” Paxton and Rich “Over The” Hill.  Results were as expected for the 4 combined starts.

 

Get some depth, Breslow! You lost two SPs before the season was 3 weeks old last year!!  And waited until mid-July to get a replacement that was released by another team..

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, notin said:

Rather than luck, maybe the Sox could try to add depth.  They signed two starting pitcher last year that started as much as one game for them.  Criswell and Chase Anderson, who started one game. They signed 0 starting pitchers with MLB experience to minor league contracts.  They did themselves no favors on the pitching depth front. 

Until Fitts came up in September, not a single farm product started a game.  Priester was their second prospect to get a start, and he started the last game of the year.

They added a couple starters midseason - James “Broken Maple” Paxton and Rich “Over The” Hill.  Results were as expected for the 4 combined starts.

 

Get some depth, Breslow! You lost two SPs before the season was 3 weeks old last year!!  And waited until mid-July to get a replacement that was released by another team..

I'd like to see us add an ace, but a solid 2/3 type is maybe the best I can even dream of.

Yes, then add 3-4 Criswell/Anderson types and hope they end up like Criswell.

[vjcsmoke]

And of course Chris Sale goes and have one of his best years after being traded from the Red Sox.

Why can't we get players like that? Oh yeah we give away good players and get garbage in return.

It was the same story with Mookie Betts who is now on a World Series team.

Our front office is infuriatingly bad.

[Hugh2]

On 10/2/2024 at 1:35 PM, dgalehouse said:

When signing pitchers, you need some good judgment and a whole lot of luck. It seems to me that they are breaking down at a higher rate than ever before. 

Sox seem to have lacked both in recent years. 

[moonslav59]

Good thing our infuriatingly bad front office did not listen to this board and trade Duran...you know, they guy who had a higher WAR (6.7) than Sale (6.2.).

You win some...you lose some.

Lately, we've done a lot of losing.

[moonslav59]

Just now, Hugh2 said:

Sox seem to have lacked both in recent years. 

In some ways, you get what you pay for, and continually signing 1 year pitchers locks a GM into a certain type of signing- usually a gamble.

Granted, $5-10M/1 is not chump change, and we should have done better than Richards and kluber at $10M. We actually did better with our $5-7M AAV SP'ers: Wacha, Hill, Paxton and Perez I & II, but non of them were really great signings.

The Gio signing was the first 2 year deal over $5M AAV and the first SP'er deal over a $10M AAV since the Nate re-sign back in 2019. Even he was a gamble, but the gamble was not supposed to be health-related. We swung and missed.

The biggest swing and miss was the timing on the Sale trade.

[notin]

34 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

In some ways, you get what you pay for, and continually signing 1 year pitchers locks a GM into a certain type of signing- usually a gamble.

Granted, $5-10M/1 is not chump change, and we should have done better than Richards and kluber at $10M. We actually did better with our $5-7M AAV SP'ers: Wacha, Hill, Paxton and Perez I & II, but non of them were really great signings.

The Gio signing was the first 2 year deal over $5M AAV and the first SP'er deal over a $10M AAV since the Nate re-sign back in 2019. Even he was a gamble, but the gamble was not supposed to be health-related. We swung and missed.

The biggest swing and miss was the timing on the Sale trade.

I wonder if the uproar would have been the same had Sale been dealt to Texas (for nothing) and proceeded to sit out most of 2022 and 2023 first…

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

I wonder if the uproar would have been the same had Sale been dealt to Texas (for nothing) and proceeded to sit out most of 2022 and 2023 first…

Nobody says a word, if he sits out 2024.

[Bellhorn04]

15 hours ago, notin said:

I wonder if the uproar would have been the same had Sale been dealt to Texas (for nothing) and proceeded to sit out most of 2022 and 2023 first…

So you're joining moon in the convoluted hindsight hypotheticals... 

[Bellhorn04]

17 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

And of course Chris Sale goes and have one of his best years after being traded from the Red Sox.

Why can't we get players like that? Oh yeah we give away good players and get garbage in return.

It was the same story with Mookie Betts who is now on a World Series team.

Our front office is infuriatingly bad.

Trading Sale could have been justified if it was part of a plan to seriously upgrade the rotation.  That's what I thought was going on when I first heard about the trade.

But for them to trade Sale and his potential to at least have a 3 win season which I thought he still had, and then do no more than sign Giolito, yeah, I did find that infuriating. 

They deserved what they got IMO. 

[Bellhorn04]

On 10/2/2024 at 1:19 PM, notin said:

Atlanta had pitching with or without Sale.  Boston did not…

I'm still waiting for a logical explanation of why that would be a good reason for Boston to trade Sale...

 

[notin]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I'm still waiting for a logical explanation of why that would be a good reason for Boston to trade Sale...

 

That’s why Atlanta made a logical team to acquire him.  The reason the Sox traded Sale has been explained to you so many times, you’ve started facetiously complaining about it.  But I can do it again if you like..

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

That’s why Atlanta made a logical team to acquire him.  The reason the Sox traded Sale has been explained to you so many times, you’ve started facetiously complaining about it.  But I can do it again if you like..

No, that's OK, you're tried and failed enough times.

[notin]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

No, that's OK, you're tried and failed enough times.

I do better with people who acknowledge history :)

[Bellhorn04]

I guess I'll have to say this another million times.  In isolation, yes, I see the reasons for trading Sale and getting back a good prospect.  But I don't think we should look at moves like this in isolation.  When you look at the big picture that the Red Sox needed starting pitching and that the only other move was signing Giolito, a guy who got lit up for the last 2 months of 2023, that's when trading Sale looks just plain bizarre.

 

[notin]

54 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

So you're joining moon in the convoluted hindsight hypotheticals... 

My other option is to join those who rewrite medical science and diagnose pitchers they’ve never even met for conditions they don’t understand.

But I’m the one with consulted hindsight hypotheticals…