Braves Continue Trade-Happy Offseason with Chris Sale Acquisition

With nearly every trade, you can expect fans of one side or the other to come away wondering where their GM went wrong. You can probably hear the complaints in your head, because you’ve almost certainly made them at one point or another yourself. We gave up those guys? For this one? Was there something else in it for us? What was he thinking?!?

It’s much rarer for both sides to have that reaction, because usually conventional wisdom tilts one way or the other. But the Braves and Red Sox might have accomplished it this past week:

BREAKING: The Atlanta Braves are acquiring seven-time All-Star Chris Sale in a trade with the Boston Red Sox, sources tell ESPN. Well-regarded infield prospect Vaughn Grissom is the return to Boston, which will send money with Sale, who waived his no-trade clause to join Atlanta

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 30, 2023

So in honor of sports talk radio and breathless questions about what could possibly be going through people’s heads, let’s examine both sides through the same lens.

What were the Braves Thinking?!?

Come on. Chris Sale? He’s washed! His first “healthy” season since 2019 was last year, and he still only managed 20 starts. They were solid starts, don’t get me wrong – Sale will probably be capable of striking out 30% of opposing batters when the heat death of the universe arrives – but he’s going to be 35 this year, and he’s coming off of a 4.30-ERA season. What’s more, he’s only around for one year – or two if the Braves pick up a $20 million club option for 2025.

When you pitch Sale that way, he doesn’t really sound like a fit for the Braves. An older, oft-injured pitcher to pair with their young core? It feels like mismanagement, especially for a team that was already thin in the rotation. No one is acquiring Chris Sale to fill out innings; his health history precludes that.

That’s not what Atlanta is adding Sale for, though. As potent as the Braves’ offense was, they went into last year’s playoffs wobbling on the pitching side. Even with the benefit of extra rest days thanks to the novel postseason schedule, Bryce Elder made a playoff start – 2.2 innings, six earned runs. That was their third starter; playoff teams need four if they last more than a round.

The Braves were clearly aware of this shortcoming heading into the offseason. They reportedly pursued Aaron Nola to address their need, though he ended up staying in Philadelphia. They didn’t follow that up by swooping in on any of the top tier of free agents, but their desire was clear.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Look at Atlanta’s roster. It’s primed for a playoff push, and has that one obvious weakness. One way or another, it would be strange to go into the offseason with this team, with all its obvious strengths, and not spend resources addressing the elephant in the room.

If you’re looking at it exclusively through the lens of how Atlanta will line up in the 2024 playoffs, adding Sale starts to make more sense. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a full season out of him. The Braves are surely aware of that, though, and they have plenty of fifth starter types to fill in for him in the regular season. You can never have enough pitching, or so the saying goes. But that’s less true when we’re talking about enough pitching to win some games 6-5 or 9-7 and hang onto the NL East behind a historically great offense.

Pitchers with Sale’s upside don’t exactly grow on trees. Could Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery fill that role? Sure, but neither of them are on the Braves right now, and after all their payroll-raising shenanigans earlier in the winter, they might not have room for those salaries. Sale fits a lot of things the Braves are looking for: reasonable salary outlay thanks to the Red Sox covering $17 million of his salary, short-term commitment, and the potential to make a difference on a full-strength playoff roster.

The cost? Vaughn Grissom, who didn’t really have a spot on the Braves after they added Jarred Kelenic in the aforementioned trade bonanza. He didn’t really have a spot even before that, to be honest; Atlanta made noise about moving him to the outfield, but he’s an infielder by trade. Aside from spelling Orlando Arcia when he was injured, they left him in the minors last year; at this point, I think it’s fair to say that he’s a second baseman who can moonlight at other positions only in case of emergency.

Personally, I probably would have stuck with Grissom and spent the money that went out the door in their Kelenic pursuit on a pitcher instead. But I understand where they’re coming from. Given the moves that had already happened, Grissom was more of a luxury than a necessity; David Fletcher can fill in for his infield backup role, and Ozzie Albies squarely blocked Grissom from an everyday role. If they didn’t think he could play left field and out-hit Kelenic, this series of moves makes sense to me. I happen to disagree – I’m down on Kelenic’s ability to make enough contact to put up consistently good offensive numbers – but I think Atlanta’s decision comes down to deciding that Grissom was surplus and turning him into something more helpful for 2024.

What Were the Red Sox Thinking?!?

This one’s a little bit easier: The Red Sox are acting like they don’t plan on making the playoffs in 2024. Their rotation was spotty to begin with; we’re penciling in newly signed Lucas Giolito as their number one starter, but he hasn’t fit that bill in years. Brayan Bello and Nick Pivetta are good but not great; Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck might be a step below that. Losing Sale, even if they were only counting on half a season’s worth of starts from him, puts a lot of stress on that group.

If that sounds dire, wait until you hear about the other side of the ball. There are some highlights, no doubt. Rafael Devers is still great. Masataka Yoshida didn’t display the power Boston hoped for in his first season in the majors, but he still put up a reasonable batting line. Triston Casas and Jarren Duran look like keepers. But that’s only part of a team, not the whole thing, and the roster gets pretty thin after that.

Another way of looking at it: If you’re trading for a guy who couldn’t find playing time on the Braves, that’s one thing. Grissom might be pretty good! But the Red Sox also traded for a guy who couldn’t find playing time on the Cardinals, Tyler O’Neill. That’s a sign of a thin roster. Boston’s farm system is both deep and good – we had it as the second-best in baseball at the end of the season – but those reinforcements probably won’t arrive in 2024.

When you add all of those things up, things click a little bit. Sale wasn’t going to make the difference between making or missing the playoffs, because even with him in the fold, Boston was probably the worst team in the AL East. Unlike the Braves, the Red Sox have a place to play Grissom, and his timeline fits much better with theirs; he has less than a year of service time despite debuting in 2022, which means he’ll be in Boston for quite a while.

That’s not an exciting conclusion. I’m sure the Red Sox didn’t plan on turning Sale into a guy who might end up as a utility infielder when they signed him to a contract extension before the 2020 season. But given how the rest of their team looks, and given Sale’s uncertain health, this was too good of a deal to pass up. Grissom might not have been very useful to Atlanta, but few teams have as many talented hitters as the Braves. The Red Sox can figure out if Grissom’s projections – a 110 wRC+ – are the real deal, and it’s not even a disaster if he’s worse than that, because they have several middle infield prospects coming up behind him.

So there you have it – this trade might not be exciting, but it advances the agenda for both sides in 2024. The Braves want to win another World Series. The Red Sox want to start building towards the future. Given those goals, both Sale and Grissom were wearing the wrong uniforms. Now they aren’t. Sometimes it’s just that easy.