Braves left-hander Chris Sale just had a tremendous bounceback season. He made 29 starts with a 2.38 earned run average, earning a National League Cy Young award. He was largely injured and/or ineffective from 2019 to 2023, which had him pondering retirement.
“I thought that it was gonna be my last year,” Sale said to the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast about where he was at before getting traded to Atlanta. “So I went into that offseason on a mission like ’one more year left.’… ’cause in my mind, I wasn’t walking away from baseball. I was walking away from getting hurt.”
The Red Sox traded Sale to Atlanta for Vaughn Grissom in December of 2023. At the time, as mentioned, he had been battling significant injuries for five years. Tommy John surgery in 2020 was the big one but Sale also had a stress reaction in his ribs, a fractured finger, a broken wrist suffered in a bicycle accident and a stress reaction in his shoulder blade over that span. He had a 4.16 ERA in 298 1/3 innings over those five seasons.
2024 was the final year of his extension with the Red Sox and the mounting injuries apparently had him looking towards hanging up his spikes. But he was traded to Atlanta, signed an extension that covered 2024 and 2025 with a club option for 2026, and then went on to have an excellent season in 2024. It makes for an interesting “what if” but Sale is clearly in a better spot now. The injury bug hasn’t left him entirely alone, however. He missed the final two weeks of 2024 due to back spasms and was also left off Atlanta’s postseason roster. 2024 was still a big improvement over prior years but time will tell if he can keep the good health going into his age-36 season.
Some more spring training tidbits from the NL East…
- It was reported earlier this week that Mets righty Frankie Montas has a lat strain and will be shut down for six to eight weeks. The righty is apparently a bit more optimistic than his club, however. He told members of the media today, including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, that he’s already feeling better from his platelet-rich plasma injection and expects to be throwing again in four to six weeks. That’s still a notable period of time but it’s a bit less dire than the other timeline. He had a 4.84 ERA last year and then signed a two-year, $34MM deal with the Mets this winter. He will have the chance to opt out after the first year, though returning healthy and productive will be important if he is to consider that possibility. For now, the Mets’ rotation mix includes Sean Manaea, Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Clay Holmes, Paul Blackburn, Griffin Canning and Tylor Megill.
- Nationals outfielder James Wood has some quad tendinitis, per Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. It doesn’t bother him when he hits, so he’s been able to take batting practice but has skipped some defensive drills. Per Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com, Wood says he has “zero” concern but the club did send him for an MRI, which showed no structural damage. With still over a month before Opening Day, there’s plenty of time to get things in order, with Wood and the Nats both surely hoping for a clean bill of health by then. Now just 22 years old, Wood hit .264/.354/.427 in his major league debut last year and is slated to be a big part of the club’s future.