Pittsburgh Pirates Trade Target Profile: Chris Sale

As part of our Trademas in July series, we’ll take a look at potential trade targets for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today, we look at Chris Sale, noted rebel and left-handed starting pitcher for the Chicago White Sox.

 

The Pittsburgh Pirates are now just 1.5 games back in the Wild Card race, and starting pitching remains the team’s biggest need. The prizes of this market this month seem to be Chris Archer, Sonny Gray, and Chris Sale. It’s unclear whether any of the three will be traded, but if any is, the receiving team will be getting a bona fide ace.

Both Archer and Gray are struggling this year, but their past histories still make them attractive. Sale, however, is putting up ace numbers again this season, and with his reason locker room antics, the White Sox might now feel more inclined to move him. If a team is gonna go all in for an ace, it might as well be Sale.

Profile and Performance

The 27-year-old lefty has been in the league since 2010, but he’s been pitching as a starter since 2012. He’s rarely missed any starts, and he’s put up an ERA under 3.50 while pitching in the American League every year in the bigs. Let’s take a look at his stats:

As we can see, Sale has been a dominant pitcher every year he’s been in the league, both as a reliever and a starter. He’s made been an All-Star for five seasons running, and he’s finished in the top-six in AL Cy Young voting four years in a row. He’s never had a season ERA above 3.50, nor a WHIP above 1.15. He’s remarkably consistent, strikes out a ton of guys, walks few batters, and pitches a lot of innings. He’s everything you want in a pitcher. Oh, and he’s also under contract through 2019 that would be considered a bargain by many.

According to Brooks Baseball, Sale uses a fourseam fastball and a slider, primarily, but also occasionally mixes in a sinker and a circle change. His fastball doesn’t average a very high speed (94 mph), but he can top out pretty high, and he has a wipe-out slider, a good combination.

This season, Sale has a 3.18 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, and 129 strikeouts to just 29 walks. There’s a good chance he finished in the top-five in AL Cy Young voting again this year.

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The Case for Sale

• Sale is a legitimate number-one, frontline ace of a staff. There’s no two ways about it. His ERA, WHIP, strikeout-to-walk rates, and consistency speak to that. He’d be the Pirates go-to in a Wild Card game before Gerrit Cole, and he’d be reliable down the stretch run. Since becoming a starter, he hasn’t had a BB/9 above 2.5, nor a K/9 below eight. And even in his worst year ERA-wise when he had a 3.41 ERA last year, he set a career-high in strikeouts with 274. And that ERA would be good for second on the Pirates staff right now anyways.
• Sale’s strikeout and walk rates define what a number-one starter’s should be. He can hit double-digit strikeouts in any game, and his frame helps him accomplish that. He’s 6’6″, 180 lbs, and this size seemingly adds velocity to his fastball. Sale has struck out 200 batters in a year, struck out 10 batters per nine innings, and his fastball generates a ton of swings-and-misses. He can do all of this while walking very few batters. You would think that a guy that strikes out so many batters would occasionally walk a lot of batters in a game, but Sale never does that. He’s only walked four batters in a game twice this season, and he’s had more games walking no batters (four) than he has walking more than two batters (three). His career-high for walks in a season is 51, and that was his first year as a starter in 2012. You know what you’re getting in this regard with Sale.
• Sale is so dominant, but what makes him the most attractive player on the market is his contract. He’s making just $9.15 million this season, and he’s signed for the next four years. That final year Sale would make just $15 million. Yes, this may be a lot to the Pirates, but compared to what even average pitching gets these days, Sale is a bargain. Sale is making this season about what Jon Niese is making. I’d say Sale is worth the money.

The Case against Sale

• Sale’s recent locker room antics might scare a few teams off. Some think he’s a head case, while others think he’s just immature. Regardless, what he did recently to the White Sox uniforms was childish and not a good look for him. The Pirates have had very good clubhouse chemistry during their recent run of success, and the team doesn’t want someone coming in and messing that up. This chemistry is a real, important factor for the Pirates, and one that has to be taken into consideration before any external option is brought in.
• It would take a huge prospect package to get Sale, one that would involve multiple top prospects. This is not to mention that it’s a seller’s market right now, so the price could be sky-high. Would it be worth it? Maybe. But Neal Huntington has never given up top prospects in a trade, so we’d have to see it to believe it first.

What it Might Take

We mentioned that it’d take a lot to get Sale, and we meant it. I’d say the starting price would be Tyler Glasnow and Josh Bell, plus two more prospects. Many are enamored with Glasnow and Bell, including the front office, which has protected their development at every turn. Even Austin Meadows seems to have a tremendous ceiling. After those three, the Pirates don’t seem to have too many other true high-ceiling prospects. Many such as Steven Brault and Chad Kuhl have high floors, but do not have the superstar potential of Glasnow and Bell.

This move, however, would be a move for the future as well. Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, and Chris Sale is a pretty good top three for the next three seasons.

Conclusion

If the Pirates were leading the NL Central, I might be tempted to make a move for Chris Sale. But the Wild Card is such a crap-shoot, even if Sale were to pitch that game. And guys like Glasnow, Bell, and Meadows are so promising that I’d stick with the current route the Pirates are taking. Glasnow and Bell should be starting on the team next season, and Meadows in the near future. As fantastic as Sale is, the Pirates rely on prospects to build their major league team, and trading away multiple top prospects from their system could derail the team for years.

 

Image Credit – Keith Allison

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