Braves left-hander Chris Sale has been named the Nationwide League Cy Younger Award winner for 2024, per an announcement from the Baseball Writers Affiliation of America. Zack Wheeler of the Phillies completed in second place with Paul Skenes of the Pirates in third place.
The award is the ultimate cherry on prime of a exceptional comeback season for Sale. He had a run from 2010 to 2018 of being the most effective pitchers within the majors, however struggled in 2019 after which was within the harm wilderness for fairly some time. On account of numerous illnesses, together with Tommy John surgical procedure, he solely pitched about 150 innings whole from 2020 to 2023.
The Pink Sox flipped him to Atlanta virtually a yr in the past, in December of 2023. The transfer was seen as dangerous on the time, as Sale was going into his age-35 season and was a number of years faraway from his prime.
On prime of that, Atlanta despatched Vaughn Grissom to Boston within the deal, a notable prospect who nonetheless had years and years of low-cost management. In return, they have been getting only one yr of Sale, although they did signal him to an extension that coated 2024 and 2025 with a membership choice for 2026. That prolonged their window of management over him, however at a reasonably hefty value level: $38MM for the 2 assured years plus $18MM for the choice.
However to date, the deal has been extremely lopsided in favor of Atlanta. Grissom was injured for a lot of 2024 and didn’t carry out properly whereas wholesome. For Atlanta, most of their key contributors received damage this yr whereas Sale satirically stayed wholesome, regardless of his latest observe document.
Sale completed the season having made 29 begins and thrown 177 2/3 innings, permitting 2.38 earned runs per 9. He struck out 32.1% of batters confronted, solely gave out walks 5.6% of the time and received grounders on 44.8% of balls in play. He gained the pitching triple crown by main the Nationwide League in ERA, wins and strikeouts. His tally of 6.4 wins above alternative from FanGraphs was simply essentially the most within the majors this yr, with Tarik Skubal of the Tigers second at 5.9 fWAR.
Regardless of his earlier dominance, that is truly Sale’s first time taking house the {hardware}. Per MLB’s Sarah Langs on X, Sale is the primary pitcher to complete prime 5 in Cy Younger voting in 5 straight years, fall exterior the highest 5 for 5 straight years instantly after, adopted by a return to the highest 5. He’s additionally (X hyperlinks from Langs) the primary pitcher to have six earlier prime 5 finishes and later win the award, along with being one of many 5 oldest pitchers to win for the primary time.
Sale received 26 of the primary place votes (full vote tallies from the BBWAA), with the opposite 4 going to Wheeler, who logged precisely 200 innings over 32 begins with a 2.57 ERA. Skenes already gained Rookie of the 12 months award earlier this week however this additional cements what an incredible season he had. Different pitchers getting votes have been Dylan Stop, Shota Imanaga, Logan Webb, Michael King, Hunter Greene, Ryan Helsley, Cristopher Sánchez, Reynaldo López, Sean Manaea and Aaron Nola.
