How Chris Sale rediscovered his Cy Young stuff with Braves: Three reasons for southpaw’s early success

During an off-season where impact pitching was scarce, the Atlanta Braves found a creative way to address their rotation needs. On December 30, the Braves landed seven-time All-Star Chris Sale in a trade one by one with the Red Sox sending infielder Vaughn Grissom to Boston. The Red Sox agreed to pay $17 million of Sale’s salary to facilitate the trade, and soon after Atlanta signed him to a two-year extension.

“We think he’s a playoff-caliber starter,” Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos said after the trade. “And that’s what we were looking for, if we could acquire this offseason, someone who we felt could start playoff games for us.”

A quarter of the way through the 2024 season, things couldn’t be better for Venda with the Braves. The 35-year-old lefty owns a 2.54 ERA in eight starts and 49 2/3 innings with strikeout and walk totals (61/8 K/BB) that resemble his Cy Young-caliber peak. On Tuesday night, Sale struck out nine Chicago Cubs in seven scoreless innings of two-hit ball (ATL 7, CHC 0).

“Obviously I’m happy with where we’ve been and where we are, but we’ve got a long way to go,” Sale said after Tuesday’s win (via the Atlanta Journal Constitution). “I’m grateful for where we are, but there’s nothing to hang my hat on yet.”

That’s a good perspective from a veteran pitcher who has had more than his fair share of injuries in recent years and knows how long and demanding the season is. Eight games in, sales have been fantastic. However, there are only eight matches. May is not the time to start hanging banners and making declarations of victory.

A year ago, a stress fracture in Sale’s shoulder limited him to 20 starts and 102 2/3 innings with the Red Sox, and in those 102 2/3 innings he wasn’t especially effective: 4.30 ERA with a .709 OPS against. That’s not bad by any means, although he was a far cry from the pitcher who finished in the top six in AL Cy Young voting every year from 2012-18.

The Braves gambled on Sale’s recovery and were positioned to do so because in 2024, Sale was penciled in as their third starter at best behind Spencer Strider and Max Fried. He may even have been number 4 behind Charlie Morton. Atlanta didn’t need Sale to pitch like an ace like the Red Sox did. They just needed him to be better than everyone else’s #3 or #4. The sell trade was my favorite off-season move for this reason.

Strider’s season-ending elbow surgery increases Sale’s importance to Atlanta’s World Series hopes, and so far he appears to be up to the task. What is Sale doing this year to rediscover his Cy Young-caliber form? Here are three reasons why he is once again one of the most dominant pitchers in the game.

1. He is healthy

We have to start here. For the first time in a long time, Sale is healthy and was able to have a normal offseason. Last offseason, he was coming off a finger injury and wrist surgery. The previous two seasons, he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. This was a normal winter for sales. He could simply prepare to throw.

“The No. 1 thing for me is health,” Sale said Tuesday (via MLB.com). “I had to get strong again.”

Here is the list of injuries Sale has dealt with in recent years:

Sale’s finger was broken by a comebacker on July 17, 2022, and while recovering that August, Sale fell off his bike and broke his wrist. He needed surgery. The broken finger is an unlucky injury and the broken wrist is the result of carelessness, I suppose. All of these other injuries are baseball injuries. It’s all an arm issue and they limited the sale to 151 innings from 2020-23.

Being healthy now and staying healthy all year, including during what the Braves hope will be a deep postseason, are two very different things, and the team made sure to give Sale extra rest as often as possible this season. He played just one of his eight games on normal rest. The Braves gave Sale an extra day of rest almost every time.

The biggest reason for Sale’s return to form is his health. He hadn’t been this well physically in almost seven years. Will good health last? We’ll just have to wait and see. The best predictor of future injuries is past injuries, and Sale has a lot of past injuries. Right now, though, he’s healthy and throwing the ball as well as ever.

2. He is leaning on the slider

Throughout his career, Sale has been a fastball/slider monster who mixes in occasional changeups. He’s still that guy and now he’s throwing his slider more than ever. At 42.2%, Sale ranks fifth among qualified starters in slider usage. Only Jon Gray (46.2%), Dylan Cease (45.3%), Brady Singer (43.4%) and Tanner Houck (42.8%) throw their sliders more.

Here are Sale’s pitch usage rates since moving into the full-time rotation in 2012:

Despite all-time high velocity, pitchers are reducing their use of fastballs and increasing their use of the breaking ball a little more with each passing season. Sale’s former team, the Red Sox, I finally managed to keep up with the times and discovered this season. The Braves have been ahead of the curve for some time and have had Sale throw more sliders than fastballs.

The logic is simple: breaking balls are harder to hit than fastballs, so throw more breaking balls. And in Sale’s case, he has one of the best sliders in the sport. He was one of the game’s great swing-and-miss pitchers throughout his career, and even during his subpar 2023, opponents hit just .162 with a .358 slugging percentage against his slider.

Sale is throwing his best pitch — one of the best pitches in the sport — more often, so he’s having more success. Sometimes it really is that simple. It helps that Sale’s fastball averages 95 mph, his best velocity since before Tommy John surgery. We can attribute this to good health. More speed + more sliders = great results.

3. He’s locating the slider better

Adding more sliders is one thing, but to really make the plan work, Sale needs to locate his slider well, and he’s doing that this year. He’s hitting his slider in the zone more often, and when you show that you can throw your slider for strikes, it puts hitters in protection mode and opens them up to off-base chases. They prepare to attack and Sale can use this aggression against them.

Here are the numbers in the Sale slider:

Non-competitive pitches are pitches that are at least 18 inches away from the center of the plate. These are the easiest shots. These are pitches that are a ball that comes out of the pitcher’s hand. Sale has reduced those numbers this season and he is throwing more strikes with his slider in general. He’s so aggressive that hitters have to respect him, and that leaves them vulnerable to this:

That slider started in the left-handed batter’s box and nearly hit Seiya Suzuki in the back leg. The whole “throw the slider for strikes more often” thing won’t work for everyone. Some guys have to throw the plate with the slider. Sale’s slider is so good that he can pepper the zone and get good results. Few pitchers can do that.

With Sale, it’s not really about a team taking a pitcher and helping him get to another level. We have seen sales so well in the past. He’s doing it a little differently, but this isn’t an out-of-the-blue success story. He’s a Cy Young-caliber pitcher putting up Cy Young-caliber results thanks to good health and a slight adjustment to his pitching mix.

Sale’s health will be an ongoing story throughout the season. He has a long history of arm injuries and pitchers with a history of long arm injuries tend to have more arm problems. It is what it is. To date, however, Sale is once again a dominant pitcher and one of the premier starters in baseball. Atlanta’s bet is paying off well.