What has to happen for Atlanta to "win" the Chris Sale for Vaughn Grissom trade?
The Atlanta Braves stunned most of the baseball world on Saturday, pulling off their second big trade of the offseason and, just as the first one, doing it at a surprising time.
Atlanta followed up their acquisition of Jarred Kelenic from the Seattle Mariners, consummated on the eve of the MLB Winter Meetings, with an acquisition of Chris Sale from the Boston Red Sox on December 30th, the day before New Year's Eve and when most of the baseball world (and media) is "out of office".
Atlanta gave up only infielder Vaughn Grissom in the deal, with Boston covering $17M of Sale's $27.5M salary for 2024 (and $10M of Atlanta's remaining commitment to Sale is deferred, so their cash outlay for 2024 is only $500k.)
But what does Sale have to do with the Braves for Atlanta to have "won" the trade?
National MLB reporter Ken Rosenthal went on Foul Territory, hosted by former Braves catcher AJ Pierzynski, to give his take.
In Rosenthal's opinion, Atlanta needs to not only have Sale pitch into the playoffs and pick up his club option for 2025 for the trade to be considered a success.
On the surface, it's hard to argue that anything less isn't a successful deal by Atlanta when you consider they gave up six seasons of Vaughn Grissom, a talented bat that, while not suited for shortstop duties, could be a capable second baseman.
On the flip side, Grissom's value to Atlanta was significantly less than to any other roster, simply because of Atlanta's unprecedented lineup certainty. Every single defensive position on the diamond has multiple years of team control, with the first open spot, shortstop, not coming available until 2026 (or 2027 if the team picks up Orlando Arcia's club option), but also being a position that Grissom's shown he can't play.
While it's tempting to argue that Sale needs to be retained for 2025 for this trade to work out, if Sale makes it to the postseason healthy and gives Atlanta effective innings in October, it'll be hard to argue that they lost this deal.
Although that being said, retaining Sale for 2025 needs to be in the plans. With Max Fried hitting free agency and Morton's contract expiring just days before his 41st birthday, the Braves project to have multiple rotation vacancies going into 2025. While there's plenty of pitching talent in this system, it's unknown whether or not there will be two pitchers ready to step in as possible postseason starters for Fried and Morton if they do, in fact, leave Atlanta.
But that's an article for another day.
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