Prior entries:
Chris Sale led Braves pitchers with 3.6 fWAR in 125 2/3 innings of work last year. When the Braves acquired Sale for Vaughn Grissom, they were able to do so because it was perfectly reasonable
to assume that Sale would make fewer than ten starts in 2024, given his propensity for both baseball-related and off-field injuries. The guy hurt himself biking to Chipotle in a part of Boston that isn’t very friendly to bikers; you can see why the Red Sox were perhaps eager to move on. Of course, that led to some egg on some faces, as Sale dominated in a 29-start campaign in 2024, winning the NL Cy Young Award in the process.
But then came 2025, and it was time to once again have silly injuries dampen his production — this time as a result of a dive in the ninth inning of a not-that-close game that led to some boinked ribs and Sale missing about a third of the season. Whoops.
Career-to-date, status
Sale’s career is long and storied enough that summarizing it isn’t really gonna help anyone all that much for looking to 2026.
Drafted with the 13th overall pick in 2010, Sale made just 11 minor league appearances before dominating as a reliever for the White Sox in 2010-2011. He then had a crazy-dominant run as a starter from 2012-2018, putting up nearly 40 fWAR in seven seasons, making at least 26 starts in each year, and getting traded to the other Sox team partway through that run. 2019, the first year of a gaudy contract extension, featured somewhat diminished performance, and he hit the shelf with elbow inflammation that prematurely ended his season.
Things then got silly, as the 2020-2023 campaigns featured pneumonia, a pandemic, Tommy John Surgery, a rib stress fracture suffered while throwing batting practice, a finger fracture on a comebacker, the aforementioned wrist-bike-Chipotle incident, and a shoulder problem. Then he got traded to the Braves and issues miraculously disappeared for a season. Yay.
The Braves reworked Sale’s contract when trading for him. Owed $27.5 million in 2024 with a $20 million club option for 2025 at the time of the deal, the Braves changed the terms to a $16 million payout in 2024, a guaranteed $22 million in 2025, and a new club option for $18 million for 2026, which they exercised basically as soon as they were able to this offseason. (The Red Sox also sent cash along with Sale in the trade. For more, have fun reading Cot’s.) Basically, pending any additional extensions, Sale will hit free agency after this season.
Recent performance
Sale was still dominant in 2025, with the big dent on his value being him missing about two months with the rib injury sustained from diving to grab a comebacker. He put up 3.6 fWAR in 125 2/3 innings — that’s a 5.7 fWAR-per-200 innings pace. Sale’s line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) was 57/53/66 in 2024 and 61/67/73 in 2025. So, yeah, he declined — but not by that much. And, as we noted in our player review series, if the two months he missed looked like his performance after returning (64/64/58), his 2025 could’ve looked even more like his 2024.
The question for Sale is more one of durability. He’s already shown the ability to make in-season adjustments to return to dominant performance when he starts slipping (see April 2025 compared to the months afterwards). It’s more just… he’s going to turn 37 right around Opening Day, he’s cleared 150 innings once since 2018, and that one Cy Young campaign aside, he just keeps getting hurt in weird ways.
Forecasting
Same brief disclaimer: once upon a time I built a projection system to try to mirror/get at the workings of Steamer and ZiPS. I called it IWAG. You can figure out what that means, maybe. I’m bringing it back for this series of posts. Here’s Sale, for 2026.
Not too much to say here, if you’ve read the above. There’s a big swing in Sale’s production based on health and availability, which can matter a lot. Hopefully he doesn’t have more incidents in his future, but given that the 2026 Braves are already suffering from the fallout of Ha-Seong Kim vs. a patch of ice, don’t be too optimistic here. That aside, IWAG basically sees 2026 Sale as identical to 2025 Sale on a rate basis.
If you want to chuckle, look at the chart above, then go back to the Ronald Acuña Jr. one of these, then look back at this chart. Alright, so, per IWAG, the Braves’ fortunes rest in large part on how healthy their two best players are. Cool, because they’ve never had issues with keeping guys on the field before… right?
Point is: IWAG has few qualms about Sale being anything other than a standout performer when he’s available. The question is just whether he’s available or not.
IWAG diverges from the other projection systems here. Steamer has Sale at around 4 WAR per 169 innings, more than a win below IWAG’s rate basis point estimate. ZiPS is basically in line with Steamer on a rate basis, with an even lower innings total. They probably know how to account for Sale’s advanced age better than IWAG. In any case, let’s hope Sale stays healthy and available.
Your turn
Alright, I’ve given you the info. Well, some info. You may have your own info. With that, I ask you:
- Rounded to the nearest fWAR, how much will Chris Sale produce in 2026? (If you ignore this and provide a partial fWAR, I will round it for you, and your scoring will not be based on 1 WAR around your point estimate, but 1 WAR around the rounded number.)
- How confident are you in your choice? Go with a scale from 1-5, where 3 is “I dunno, reasonably confident,” 5 is certain, and 1 is “I am participating but have no confidence in my choice and don’t want the fact that it will likely be incorrect to affect my place in any theoretical standings all that much.”
