Did Craig Breslow pull off the impossible?
The first detour from club Bloom is a big one for Craig Breslow. I said impossible, but when you pay someone $17 million to take away the dog that can’t piss and shit outside anything is possible. Chris Sale had one good season for the Red Sox. No. One great season for the Red Sox. In 2017, his first year in Boston Sale pitched in 32 games, 214 innings pitched, went 17-8 with a 2.90 ERA and a .970 WHIP for you nerds. He finished 2nd in AL CY Young and 9th in MVP. He was an All - Star. Then in the playoffs, he went 0-2 against the Astros with a 8.38 ERA in only 9.2 innings pitched. He blew.
To be fair he came back in 2018 and was again dominant in the regular season until the All - Star break. Then the break down began. Yes, he played hero in the 2018 World Series, but that shit was weak and frankly unneccsary. David Price of all people showed up in 2018 to “hold the trump card”. Nathan Eovaldi was the real Ace during that run, but I digress.
Since the 218 All-Star break Sale has just 56 starts and 298⅓ innings pitched, after inking a five-year, $145-million extensio nlate in spring training in 2019. He had just 11 appearances from 2020-22. Last year, he avoided minor bicycle injuries and miraculously managed to start 20 times and amassed a spectacularly mediocre 4.30 ERA and a 4.31 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Chris Sales has either been MIA or completely useless since July of 2018. And Breslow dealt him for what looks like an actual player of need? Lets not go too far.
Vaughn Grissom
He made a bright debut across a short sample in 2022, hammered Triple-A pitching to the tune of a .921 OPS in 2023 and has shown the sort of glove that could stick defensively on the right side on the infield. Grissom is under team control through the 2029 season and could offer Boston the needed flexibility — through being flipped himself or in future trade talks involving infield prospects such as Marcelo Mayer, Ceddanne Rafaela, Nick Yorke and Chase Meidroth — to pursue necessary help in other areas. SOURCE
So, can this kid play?
Breslow is getting a ticker parade for this deal, but really what is comes down to is the same profile of a deal we have seen through the Bloom Basement days except it’s got a sexier name attached to it. Chris Sale. In return for the broken down Cy Young winner you got a young controllable talent with question marks. The return player is the same type of profile we have seen in all of these trades, but the talent is notched up a few pegs. And you had to trade a former All-Star on an expiring deal plus pay Atlanta $17 million to get him.
All in all I supposed I’m glad the Red Sox moved on from Sale, the worst contract in Red Sox history, but the more I look at it the less excited I am. This is not in a vacuum though. My thoughts here are on the heals of them signing Lucas Giolito to a trumped up Corey Kluber contract. This is the same mid market playbook we’ve seen the last four seasons. Your best hope as a Red Sox fan is Breslow can spot talent better than the walking calculator Chaim Bloom because John Henry still refuses to pay for it.