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 high of a exceptional comeback season for Sale. He had a run from 2010 to 2018 of being among the finest pitchers within the majors, however struggled in 2019 after which was within the damage wilderness for fairly some time. As a result of varied illnesses, together with Tommy John surgical procedure, he solely pitched about 150 innings complete from 2020 to 2023.
The Crimson Sox flipped him to Atlanta virtually a 12 months 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 high 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 had been getting only one 12 months 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 this point, the deal has been extremely lopsided in favor of Atlanta. Grissom was injured for a lot of 2024 and didn’t carry out nicely whereas wholesome. For Atlanta, most of their key contributors received harm this 12 months whereas Sale mockingly stayed wholesome, regardless of his latest observe file.
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 substitute from FanGraphs was simply essentially the most within the majors this 12 months, with Tarik Skubal of the Tigers second at 5.9 fWAR.
Regardless of his earlier dominance, that is really Sale’s first time taking residence the {hardware}. Per MLB’s Sarah Langs on X, Sale is the primary pitcher to complete high 5 in Cy Younger voting in 5 straight years, fall outdoors 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 high 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 Yr award earlier this week however this additional cements what a tremendous season he had. Different pitchers getting votes had been Dylan Stop, Shota Imanaga, Logan Webb, Michael King, Hunter Greene, Ryan Helsley, Cristopher Sánchez, Reynaldo López, Sean Manaea and Aaron Nola.
