Two Years Later, the Chris Sale-Vaughn Grissom Trade Continues to Haunt Craig Breslow

36 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Craig needs a sign on his wall that reads:

"DO NOT TRADE STARTING PITCHERS EVER AGAIN."

Just starting pitchers?  Imagine if he had unloaded Story this off-season…

In retrospect, it's pretty awful, I agree.  But, when it happened, I think most people on Talksox were happy to see the back of Chris Sale.  After two excellent seasons in 2017 and 2018, the wheels came off in 2019.  indeed, despite Sale's terrific ERA in 2018, he only pitched 158 innings.  in 2019 it was 147 with an ERA of 4.40.  Then came tommy john surgery which caused Sale to miss the lost season of 2020--great timing!.  But then he basically missed 2021 and 2022 with a combined 48 IP.  In 2023, he pitched 103 innings, but his ERA was 4.30, about the same as his 4.40 in 2019.  

No way, no how do I think Grissom was intended as a meaningful trade for Sale.  He had played just 64 games for the Braves in 2022 and 2023 combined and his WAR in 2023 was -0.7.   

Yes, the Sox gave $17M to the Braves to pay Sale's 2024 salary, but that was because Sale wanted a 3 year deal after the 2023 season,   The Braves agreed to do so.  At that point, the Sox (Breslow) decided "good riddance" and agreed to the $17M while the Braves are now paying Sale $38M for this year and next.  

The simple fact is that the Braves saw something in Sale's 2023 season that the Sox did not.  They also found it easy to ignore 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 because of the elbow and bike-riding injuries.  The Sox, on the other hand, agonized over those same 4 seasons because they were paying Sale a lot of money. (which was actually chump change by today's standards).  

And this.  Tommy John surgery is insanely popular these days because it doesn't just fix the elbow, it makes it stronger.  So 2023 was Sale's first real season after TJ, and the Braves thought they saw the good Sale emerging even though he was 34.  The Sox thought exactly the opposite.  They thought "older is never better when you're over 30."  

There was some logic to the trade, even if you disagreed with it on day one.

2B had been and still is a big issue on this team. Grissom looked like the best option we had, at the time. The Sale injury history has been well documented and has continued in ATL. Yes, paying $17M sucked, but we should look at the budget JH established and figure the $10M "saved" was used toward paying for part of Gio's deal or some other contract we added, like Tyler O'Neill.

When you look at the sheer volume of additions and subtractions Brez has made in just over 2 years, one should expect at least a couple mistakes. The Sale trade was a doozy, in hindsight, and hats off to those who thought it was on day one. The Buehler signing was another one, and at a cost of the Kluber and Richards signings combined. I guess we could call the Hendriks' signing a bust, too, but $10M can only be viewed in a lesser spotlight. Some point to the non-deadline deals as major blunders or just plain bad choices. IMO, the 2024 moves were all that was called for, and all but Jansen came through with any value. This year, I do agree we should have done more than M & M and later Lowe, but some of the massive overpays made at the deadline have looked pretty bad, so far. Of course we could cherry-pick Josh Naylor and wonder, "What if," but his .800 OPS with SEA is not a great deal better than Lowe's .784. (The HRs and RBIs are, though.) The Priester deal ha sucked, but how many of us really thought we let one slip away, when the deal was made?

I feel like the Brez plan was to build rotation depth over the winter to point where no deadline deals would be needed and the excess could be used to fill the pen needs most of us felt was our biggest weakness going into 2025. It was not a big bat or another ace starter.

Brez met one major need with the Bregman signing- actually two (a RHB and 3B D.) That was shocking after many of us felt the Soto run was just for show.

He quietly filled our great need at back-up catcher by acquiring a FT catcher for a AA arm.

His 2024 Gio signing finally came through.

Romy off waivers was the type of deal we hired Bloom to make, but saw so little of. The guy is now 8th in team PAs and should pass Devers by year's end. He is no longer a journeyman/platoon profile. He's a FT'er who can play 1B, 2B and maybe 3B/SS.

The Chapman signing was the big kicker, and many of us, including me felt that neglecting the pen was his biggest winter mistake. You don't hear as much hindsight judging on that move as we do for Sale, Buehler and the non deadline moves, do we?

The Wilson signing looked like a near joke. Deals made the year(s) before for Slaten, Fitts, Weissert and a few others helped, this year, although the Slaten injury hurt. Even scrub deals like Toro and Eaton have helped.

Perhaps most important of all was the Crochet trade. No discussion is needed on this deal.

To me, other than the Crochet and Chapman deals, his work transforming the farm pitching has been a huge plus that will pay dividends for years to come.

IMO, Brez has been a big overall plus. Our pitching looks strong and deep and most are controlled for years to come. Our D is greatly improved. While our offense lacks the big bopper, like Devers, it is deep and pretty strong. No other team has had a better bottom of the order than us, and that is not easy, when you figure we lost an .820+ hitting 1Bman for 5 months, our best batter (Devers) for 4 months, Bregman & Abreu for over a month and Anthony and Mayer for most of the season. I'm not blaming injuries and the Devers trade, but rather pointing out  that this team still excelled in the batting slots 5-9, despite all these losses. The everyday player team control years is the envy of every MLB team- only Bregman & Refsnyder lose or may lose team control, this winter, on the line-up side of the roster.

Again, we lack the superstar or two that our past ring teams always had, but we have a lot of players who are expected to be pretty good to very good players, going forward:

Anthony, Mayer, Narvaez and maybe Campbell.

Duran, Story, Abreu and maybe Rafaela.

Role players like Romy, Eaton, Sogard, Wong and maybe a resurgence by Yoshida or Casas.

We have a few farm hands looking to make an impact in 2026 or maybe 2027: Jh Garcia, Arias and maybe Romero or Jo Garcia.

I like the way our future is lining up. I thank Brez for much of that.

2 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

In retrospect, it's pretty awful, I agree.  But, when it happened, I think most people on Talksox were happy to see the back of Chris Sale.  After two excellent seasons in 2017 and 2018, the wheels came off in 2019.  indeed, despite Sale's terrific ERA in 2018, he only pitched 158 innings.  in 2019 it was 147 with an ERA of 4.40.  Then came tommy john surgery which caused Sale to miss the lost season of 2020--great timing!.  But then he basically missed 2021 and 2022 with a combined 48 IP.  In 2023, he pitched 103 innings, but his ERA was 4.30, about the same as his 4.40 in 2019.  

No way, no how do I think Grissom was intended as a meaningful trade for Sale.  He had played just 64 games for the Braves in 2022 and 2023 combined and his WAR in 2023 was -0.7.   

Yes, the Sox gave $17M to the Braves to pay Sale's 2024 salary, but that was because Sale wanted a 3 year deal after the 2023 season,   The Braves agreed to do so.  At that point, the Sox (Breslow) decided "good riddance" and agreed to the $17M while the Braves are now paying Sale $38M for this year and next.  

The simple fact is that the Braves saw something in Sale's 2023 season that the Sox did not.  They also found it easy to ignore 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 because of the elbow and bike-riding injuries.  The Sox, on the other hand, agonized over those same 4 seasons because they were paying Sale a lot of money. (which was actually chump change by today's standards).  

And this.  Tommy John surgery is insanely popular these days because it doesn't just fix the elbow, it makes it stronger.  So 2023 was Sale's first real season after TJ, and the Braves thought they saw the good Sale emerging even though he was 34.  The Sox thought exactly the opposite.  They thought "older is never better when you're over 30."  

 

 

 

From 2020 through 2023, the rhetoric was “you can’t count on Sale.”  But once he got traded, it suddenly morphed into “they should have counted on Sale.”  
 

Not sure why anyone thinks it’s so painfully obvious Sale was going to be the first starting pitcher to accrue more WAR at age 35 than he did from ages 29 through 34 combined.  But if Sale had stayed and flipped again, folks would have been all over Breslow for NOT trading him, just like they were when Bloom didn’t trade him to Texas in 2022.

Sometimes it feels like people don’t want smart CBOs or crafty CBOs; they want psychics…

1 minute ago, notin said:

From 2020 through 2023, the rhetoric was “you can’t count on Sale.”  But once he got traded, it suddenly morphed into “they should have counted on Sale.”  
 

Not sure why anyone thinks it’s so painfully obvious Sale was going to be the first starting pitcher to accrue more WAR at age 35 than he did from ages 29 through 34 combined.  But if Sale had stayed and flipped again, folks would have been all over Breslow for NOT trading him, just like they were when Bloom didn’t trade him to Texas in 2022.

Sometimes it feels like people don’t want smart CBOs or crafty CBOs; they want psychics…

They want lucky CBOs.

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

They want lucky CBOs.

No.  In fact, fans who do not like a CBO excuse away any good move he makes as “lucky” or it “fell into his lap.”  “Luck” is an excuse to justify further criticism…

5 minutes ago, notin said:

No.  In fact, fans who do not like a CBO excuse away any good move he makes as “lucky” or it “fell into his lap.”  “Luck” is an excuse to justify further criticism…

Of course, had we kept Sale and he won the Cy Young w BOS, they would not have viewed it as luck. Had Priester sucked w MIL, they'd have just said, "Meh." Had Buehler pitched well, they'd have said "About time."

Was Matz really a better trade than the Luis Garcia or Lucas Sims trades? Or was some luck involved?

When Brez made a good signing, like Bregman, they said, "He fell into his lap." The Crochet trade was a "no brainer." They Anthony, Mayer and Campbell drafts were, too. Very little mention of the Narvaez, Slaten or Fitts/Weisert trades by the Brez Gloomers. Maybe they see those deals as being lucky. How about the O'Neill trade and non re-sign? Probably just lucky, right? We sure heard about dumping Renfroe by Bloom.

2 hours ago, Jasonbay44 said:

I thought the trade was bad at the time and was pretty vocal about it for a few reasons.

The Red Sox needed starting pitching and while I’m aware Sale was an injury risk, they were paying his salary to play for another team anyway, at that point just keep him.

I also wasn’t a big fan of Grissom, mainly because he seemed pretty bad defensively and didn’t really have a position he was good at. 
it seemed bad at the time and aged even worse 

I had hopes Grissom, who looked below average at SS could maybe be average at 2B on D. Boy was I wrong.

I was Chris Freakin' Sale's biggest fan, but 5 years of letdowns, along with watching countless other pitchers coming off injuries fail, one after another, broke my camel's back.

I had hopes the Gio signing might make up for some of the loss, and he seemed like a safe bet for 28+ starts, however, I never expected he'd be the only SP'er we added.

I can see why several posters disliked or even hated the deal on day one. It's always a risk trading away a CYA pitcher, but at his age, the risk seemed minimal. Boy, was I wrong!

On 9/20/2025 at 9:48 PM, Jasonbay44 said:

I thought the trade was bad at the time and was pretty vocal about it for a few reasons.

The Red Sox needed starting pitching and while I’m aware Sale was an injury risk, they were paying his salary to play for another team anyway, at that point just keep him.

I also wasn’t a big fan of Grissom, mainly because he seemed pretty bad defensively and didn’t really have a position he was good at. 
 

it seemed bad at the time and aged even worse 

I would not have traded Sale to get him, but I thought Grissom could end up being our long-term 2nd baseman, .  I really am puzzled by what happened to Grissom in our system.  

At any rate, it ended up being a really bad trade.