Has Chris Sale’s impressive 2024 with the Braves put him back on track for Cooperstown?

July 3, 2024

For the first ten seasons of Chris Sale’s career, it looked like he was destined for Cooperstown. He had already accumulated 44.6 bWAR and 44.5 fWAR. During that time, he was the fourth-best pitcher, behind only Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, all of whom are destined for the Hall of Fame.

But then injuries struck. From 2020 to 2023, the left-hander made just 31 appearances in the starting lineup and threw 151 innings, which wouldn’t have made him a qualified pitcher in a single season, let alone four. It looked like those injuries had completely ruined any chance Sale had of joining his peers in the Hall of Fame.

This season, however, Chris Sale has returned to his pre-2019 dominance. Is this second wave enough to get him back into the Hall of Fame discussion?

For the first decade of Sale’s career, Cooperstown seemed a given. He was the pitcher with most 2,000 strikeouts, accomplishing the feat in just 1,626 innings, beating the previous record held by Pedro Martinez by 85.1 innings.

Of course, Sale wasn’t just a pitcher with a lot of strikeouts, he was one of the most dominant pitchers in the league. He appeared in seven consecutive All-Star games, finished in the top six in Cy Young voting in each of those seasons, and was named MVP in four of those seasons.

At the end of 2019, Sale’s 44.6 bWAR ranked 61st among all pitchers in his first 10 seasons. That was better than the first 10 seasons of 52 Hall of Famers, including Randy Johnson, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry and Braves legend John Smoltz.

In addition, the left-hander already had his legendary moment when he secured the championship title in the fifth game of the 2018 World Series.

2019 was the first season in which he struggled as a starter, both with success and with injuries. He pitched just 147.1 innings with a 4.40 ERA in 25 starts and suffered an elbow injury in August that sidelined him for the rest of the season.

Still, Sale was only 31 when he started the 2020 season. To stay on track for the Hall of Fame, Sale only needed to be half as successful in his 30s as he was in his 20s, and all he needed to do was stay reasonably healthy.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Sale did not immediately opt for Tommy John. After missing the end of 2019 due to elbow inflammation, the left-hander hoped the break would cure the problem.

That didn’t happen, and in March 2020, Sale underwent surgery to repair his UCL, which sidelined him for 2020 and most of 2021. The then-32-year-old returned in August 2021 and started nine games with more or less the same success he had from 2012-2018, albeit without the innings, averaging just 4.2 innings per start.

The 2021 season ended healthy, but the 2022 season started differently. As soon as the lockout ended, news came that he had fractured his ribcage. This put him out of action until July and he didn’t make his season debut until June 12.

In his season debut, he pitched five scoreless innings, but unfortunately he failed to complete another full inning before being out for the year.

With two outs in the first inning against the Yankees, Aaron Hicks hit this line drive right off Sale’s pinky.

Just weeks after breaking his pinky finger, he broke his wrist while riding his bike, ending his 2022 season after just 5.2 innings.

The left-hander’s final season with the Red Sox was similar to 2019. He couldn’t avoid injuries and even spent 60 days on the injured list, but he did surpass the 100-inning mark for the first time in the new decade. He had a 4.30 ERA, but a 3.80 FIP suggested some bad luck.

In his first five seasons as a 30-year-old, Sale accumulated just 4.7 bWAR, nearly a fifth of the WAR he had accumulated over the previous five years, and entering his 35th season he was at just 47.1. Cooperstown seemed nearly impossible given his age and significant injury history.

But then he joined the Braves.

Not only was Chris Sale healthy this year, pitching more innings through the end of June than in four of the last five seasons combined, he was also Chris Sale at his best.

This season, the 35-year-old already has 2.5 bWAR and 3.0 fWAR. From 2020 to 2023, Sale had only accumulated 3.1 fWAR in total.

He has a 2.79 ERA, a 2.31 FIP, and strikes out 32.3% of the batters he faces while walking just 4.7% of them. Sale is back among the best pitchers in baseball, likely has a guaranteed spot in this year’s All-Star Game, and is one of the early favorites for the NL Cy Young.

But is this resurgence enough to make Chris Sale eligible for the Hall of Fame again? Maybe, and it may depend on whether he can repeat the success of a current Brave.

Without the Pirates coaching staff, Charlie Morton might have become one of the best pitchers of all time.

For the first eight seasons of his career, Charlie Morton was a terrible pitcher, with a negative career bWAR and a 7.2 fWAR. Frankly, he might have been lucky to still be a major league starter.

In 2016, he became a free agent and signed with the Phillies. Although he only played four games before getting injured, he started throwing harder and using his curveball a little more often.

The Astros recognized this, signed him, and completely turned his career around. In the eight seasons since joining the Astros, Morton has had a career you’d expect from someone ten years younger. He has a fWAR of 22.6 and a bWAR of 20.1. Morton has a 3.58 ERA in 1,153 innings and has struck out 1,337 batters.

He has pitched 839 of those innings since age 35. He has averaged 2.7 fWAR per season since age 35, including the shortened 2020 season. His career best season was 2019, when he had a 6.0 WAR season. Chris Sale is on pace for a 6.0 fWAR season in his 35th season.

Although Morton has been above average as a pitcher, his success has been largely due to his health. Aside from the 2020 season, Morton has only pitched 146.2 innings since signing with Philadelphia, and that was in his first season in Houston. In every full season since then, he has been a qualified starter based on his innings.

If Chris Sale can emulate Morton’s health and longevity — which, admirably, is a tall order for someone who hasn’t been a starter since 2017 — Sale could easily surpass the 60-WAR mark that has seemingly been the threshold for starting pitchers for the past 60 years (only Jack Morris and Catfish Hunter have failed to surpass that mark and still been selected).

To reach that mark, Sale would have to average a WAR of about 2 over the next five seasons and likely surpass the 3,000 strikeout mark, with only 693 punchouts missing from even being in the conversation.

Of course, even breaking the 60 WAR mark doesn’t guarantee an election, but it certainly helps. Since 1980, there have been 11 pitchers who have reached 60 or more bWAR and are not in the Hall. Of those 11 pitchers, four are active, one is ineligible, two are steroid-affected, and one is Curt Schilling.

Although induction into the Hall of Fame depends on four or five more predominantly good seasons, Sale is in a position to make it again in 2024. Fortunately, thanks to Alex Anthopoulos’ skill, the Braves could see two more seasons of Sale dominance after this season.