The Braves traded for starting pitcher Chris Sale and quickly agreed on a two-year extension.
While Atlanta is known for handing out extensions as if it were a segment on Oprah!, this was an intriguing move by the front office. Braves’ president of baseball operations, Alex Anthopoulos, stopped by MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM and talked about the move.
“We didn’t need to do it, obviously,” he said on Sunday. “We had an extra year control in the form of a club option, which obviously that’s valuable, right? We could watch him for a year and make the decision at the end of ’24, and we can exercise or decline the option for 2025,” Anthopoulos said.
Sale had his own set of controls in the deal, too. He waived his no-trade clause to approve the deal. He said there were a lot of factors that went into making the decision. One of the main ones is that it would help both parties.
The Red Sox received infielder Von Grissom in the deal.
Anthopoulos said the Braves can benefit from Sale on and off the mound.
“We ultimately felt like we believe in this guy. We think it’s important for our clubhouse because, you know, a big part of the appeal to Chris is, yeah, of course, what he’s going to do on the mound, but the whole clubhouse piece for us is huge,” Anthopoulos added. “To have a guy like this. We love the way he goes about it. We love the way he competes. We love the example he’s going to set very much like we love what Charlie Morton does. The more we talked about it after the New Year, the more we felt pretty confident that there’s a good chance we’re going to exercise that option, and having that third-year control as an option year, we felt, made a lot of sense for us.
“One it tells Chris, ‘Hey, we believe in you, we want you to be here,’ but it also tells our clubhouse that, ‘Hey, he’s now a core piece.’ He’s going to be here for the next two to three years. If he throws really, really well, we now have an option for a third year rather than having to start over. So I see the merits of not doing it and doing it, but ultimately, from a clubhouse standpoint, from a stability standpoint, we thought it was important that when he walks in the door, everyone knows that he’s here to stay and he’s not just a one and done.”
Sale finished his four-season campaign with the Red Sox, accumulating a 4.30 ERA. Across 13 seasons in the league, the 34-year-old earned seven All-Star selections and won a World Series with Boston in 2018.
[MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM via SB Nation]
