Braves president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos has been in baseball since 2000. In 25 seasons in and around clubhouses, he has seen every type of player and personality imaginable.
He knows real from fake. Chris Sale is one of a kind.
“A lot of times, the word ‘competitor’ gets thrown around, and you think about someone who is salty or fiery,” Anthopoulos told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He’s a Grade-A human being, and you can be competitive and be a great person at the same time. And that to me is authentic. It’s not an act, it’s genuine. When it’s time to pitch and compete and win, he’s doing everything he can. When that’s done, he’s as good a teammate as you’re going to find, (as) good a person as you’re gonna find, and he’s a great example. And he commands respect in the room just because of who he is and how he goes about it.
“It’s great having a guy like that to lead your staff and that everyone can look to. He’s as accountable as anyone you’ve ever seen. You never hear him make excuses. And he’s all about team. And you can’t help but follow him, a guy like that, because of the way he goes about it. I think I can speak for every single player in that (clubhouse) – I bet you they would say the same things.”
Sale’s fierce, intense, competitive spirit is well known throughout the game. He has brought it to every clubhouse. He always had that. And then in 2018, Sale won a World Series with Boston. He recorded the final three outs. At that point, his résumé – between his ability and personality – was stunningly impressive.
Still, something was missing: A Cy Young Award – reserved for a select few, a symbol of immortal greatness. He had, at one point in his career, finished in the top five of Cy Young voting in six consecutive seasons. But the award remained elusive.
Until now.
On Wednesday, Sale was named the National League Cy Young Award winner, voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He won the award over the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and the Pirates’ Paul Skenes (who Monday took home the NL Rookie of the Year Award).
This accomplishment is much more impressive when viewed with this context: After a handful of injury-plagued seasons, everyone simply wondered whether Sale could stay healthy enough to somewhat return to form and help the Braves, who had acquired and even extended him. At age 35, he then exceeded all expectations en route to winning the award that had escaped him all those years.
Yes, Chris Sale is back.
He still is Chris Sale.
“I mean, look, we didn’t want to put unfair expectations on him,” Anthopoulos said. “But we wouldn’t have extended him (after acquiring him) if we didn’t have belief that he could be back to a top-flight starter. There was no need for us to end up doing that, and we had that strong of belief. And then the person as well. There’s a reason he’s been as successful as he has been. And again, ability is going to be first and foremost, that’s why you initially even target players. But then you factor in tremendous person, teammate, character, work ethic, all of that – that’s just very hard to find.”
Sale’s first Cy Young Award seemed like a foregone conclusion when he finished the regular season by winning a pitching triple crown for leading the NL in wins (18), ERA (2.38) and strikeouts (225). Sale is the first pitcher in Braves history to earn a triple crown and the first in the NL since Clayton Kershaw with the Dodgers in 2011. Sale didn’t pitch after Sept. 19 because of back spasms, but by then he had made his case. He clearly stood above the rest.
Dating to June 17, Sale allowed no more than two earned runs in 18 consecutive starts to finish the season – and posted a 1.96 ERA with 143 strikeouts over that span. Since earned runs became official in both leagues in 1913, this was the longest single-season streak of its kind for a starting pitcher, surpassing Walter Johnson (1919) and Félix Hernández (2014). The Braves, who battled to make the postseason, went 14-4 in Sale’s historic run of starts with two or fewer earned runs.
In 2024, Sale had six outings with at least 10 strikeouts. He became the first left-hander in franchise history to punch out 200 batters in a season. Sale has eight 200-strikeout seasons in his 14-year career – tied for second most among lefties in MLB history with Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, and only trailing Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, whom Sale idolized growing up.
Aware of his injury history, the Braves often gave Sale extra rest between starts. But make no mistake: He was a bulldog. He didn’t ride a season of five-inning outings to this award. Sale went at least seven innings in 13 of his 29 starts, and at least six innings in all but 10 starts. He never pitched fewer than four innings.
Another jaw-dropping aspect of Sale’s season: He was 11-0 with a 1.85 ERA against teams with a record of .500 or above, the second-lowest ERA in the sport among starters with at least 10 such outings. (He trailed only his teammate, Reynaldo López, who had a 1.55 ERA against teams .500 or better.) Sale joined Gerrit Cole (2023) and Curt Schilling (2004) as the only pitchers in the majors, since 1901, to win at least 10 games without suffering a loss through at least 10 starts against teams with a .500 or winning record – but Sale’s 1.85 ERA is the lowest of the three.
No one could’ve expected all of this from Sale. But the Braves projected at least some of it – or else they wouldn’t have traded for him. In a late December trade, they acquired Sale and cash from the Red Sox. (Funny enough, the Red Sox ended up paying for Sale’s Cy Young season.) The Braves knew Sale had missed a lot of time in recent years, but they weren’t scared away.
In 2020, Sale underwent Tommy John surgery – a legitimate injury. But in 2021, he tested positive for COVID-19. In 2022, he fractured his pinkie on a comebacker, then broke his wrist falling off his bike almost a month later. In 2023, he dealt with a stress reaction in his left scapula.
He made only 31 starts from the beginning of 2020 through the end of 2023, but the Braves paid more attention to the context. They knew Sale had suffered some weird injuries.
“Those things took a lot of time out, and those are freak injuries,” Anthopoulos said. “If you look at his track record and his history, he wasn’t an injury-prone guy. It all snowballed in one area, but he had been a durable starter. Yes, the Tommy John was a real injury, and he had that (scapula) issue with the Red Sox, but that was the first year back. So, we understood that there was risk. I mean, we’d be naive to not think that – there’s always risks, especially when you pitch. But we did feel like maybe the reputation or the narrative around him was maybe a little overblown.”
On the final day of the regular season, Charlie Morton, Sale’s teammate in 2024, said people sometimes make assumptions based on broad narratives. Morton implied that Sale’s season was not some underdog story.
It was simply Sale being healthy again.
“The guy has clearly been one of the best pitchers in the game, when healthy, for how many years now?” Morton told the AJC then. “I just don’t see it that way. I think what happens, and sometimes rightfully so – oftentimes rightfully so – is that you have a bad year, and then you’re hurt, and you’re struggling to get back, and people just write you off.”
Many people wrote off Sale.
But in 2024, he proved he’s still an ace, still one of the best in the game, still worthy of the aura that surrounded him earlier in his career.
Sale etched his name into baseball annals while adding a shining accomplishment to his illustrious career.
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