Sale claims Braves' 8th Cy Young Award
Mark Bowman
@mlbbowman
Anthony DiComo
@AnthonyDiComoATLANTA -- Chris Sale quieted his doubters, resuscitated his bid for Cooperstown and finally gained the one award that had eluded him.
Sale¡¯s memorable year was further rewarded on Wednesday night, when he was named the National League¡¯s Cy Young Award winner. The 35-year-old lefty is the first Braves pitcher to win this honor since Tom Glavine in 1998.
Sale received 26 of the 30 first-place votes cast by select members of the Baseball Writers¡¯ Association of America. Philadelphia¡¯s Zack Wheeler finished second, earning the other four first-place votes, while Pittsburgh¡¯s Paul Skenes came in third. Atlanta's three-time Cy Young Award winner, Greg Maddux, made the announcement on MLB Network.
¡°This wasn¡¯t an easy way to get to winning this trophy for the first time,¡± Sale said, referencing his long injury history. ¡°As soon as it happened, I¡¯m thinking about people and teammates and coaches and family. It¡¯s special to me because of all the hard work that other people put in to get me here.¡±
This was an incredible year for Sale, who was named the NL¡¯s Comeback Player of the Year last week. He was 35 years and 184 days old when the regular season concluded. The only older first-time winners are:
? Early Wynn, 1959: 39 years, 266 days
? Dennis Eckersley, 1992: 38 years, 1 day
? R.A. Dickey, 2012: 37 years, 340 days
? Warren Spahn, 1957: 36 years, 159 days
? Rollie Fingers, 1981: 35 years, 41 days
Sale finished among the top six in American League Cy Young balloting for seven straight seasons (2012-18), then endured multiple injuries that limited him to 151 innings from 2020-23. Just when it looked like his career might be over, he proved elite again.
¡°When things get taken away and you get them back, you learn to appreciate it a little bit more and you treat it a little differently,¡± Sale said. ¡°I feel like I definitely did that this year, was able to kind of slow things down and appreciate baseball.¡±
How rare is this kind of revival? According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Sale is the first pitcher to finish among the top five in Cy Young balloting for five straight years, then finish outside the top five over the five years that immediately followed, then earn another top-five finish.
Sale¡¯s best previous finishes in Cy Young voting occurred in 2017, when he was second behind Corey Kluber, and in 2014, when he finished third behind Kluber and F¨¦lix Hern¨¢ndez. He totaled an all-time-high six top-five finishes before finally winning. Gerrit Cole is the only other pitcher to have five top-five finishes before winning.
The Braves have now won eight Cy Young Awards, four fewer than the Dodgers¡¯ all-time MLB-best total. The franchise¡¯s previous winners are Warren Spahn (1957), Tom Glavine (1991 and ¡¯98), Maddux (1993-95) and John Smoltz (1996).
¡°I think I brought that group down a little bit,¡± Sale said, laughing, ¡°but I¡¯m glad that I dipped my toe in that pool.¡±
Sale won the NL Triple Crown after leading the league in wins (18), ERA (2.38) and strikeouts (225). He was the first NL pitcher to lead in each of these categories during a 162-game season since Clayton Kershaw in 2011.
The Atlanta ace also finished three strikeouts behind the MLB-leading total of Detroit's Tarik Skubal, who won this year's AL Cy Young Award. Had he at least matched Skubal, he would have become MLB¡¯s first Triple Crown winner since Johan Santana in 2006.
Sale also ranked first among MLB pitchers with a 6.4 fWAR, a 32.1 percent strikeout rate and a 2.09 FIP (fielding independent pitching).
Unfortunately, back discomfort sidelined Sale during the regular season¡¯s final week and through the Braves¡¯ Wild Card Series against the Padres. It was certainly not a fitting ending for the lanky southpaw, who spent nearly six full months quieting those critics who had given up on him.
¡°That was tough,¡± he said. ¡°You deal with things that come up as any player does through a long season. But to have something kind of sidetrack me from the biggest time of the year was tough.¡±
Sale underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020, then endured a three-season stretch in which he sustained a rib fracture, a pinky fracture, a wrist fracture and a stress fracture in his left shoulder. He threw 102 2/3 innings in 2023, more than double what he had totaled over the three previous seasons combined.
Still, the Braves were willing to take a chance on him regaining the form he had when he produced a 2.91 ERA over 208 appearances (207 starts) from 2012-18. They acquired him and $17 million from the Red Sox in exchange for utility infielder Vaughn Grissom last winter.
¡°My goal at the beginning of this year was just to be healthy,¡± Sale said. ¡°Getting greedy and thinking of things like this would have been maybe a little over my skis. I was coming to a new team that made a trade for me, when I¡¯m sure there were a lot of people that kind of gave that trade the side-eye when it first happened. ¡ To say I¡¯d be sitting here right now would be crazy. I just wanted to be able to do my job, really.¡±
Sale took advantage of the Braves¡¯ attempt to give him and each of their starters at least one extra day of rest whenever possible. He posted a 2.12 ERA through his first 10 starts, allowed eight earned runs over four innings against the A¡¯s on June 1, then posted a 1.82 ERA over his final 18 starts of the season.
How close was Sale to securing the two additional wins he needed for a 20-win season? Two of his three losses were of the tough-luck variety. He allowed two runs and struck out 10 over seven innings in a 2-1 loss to the Nationals on June 7. But the more frustrating outing may have been on June 27, when he struck out 11 and allowed just one run in a 1-0 loss to the White Sox.