Red Sox Trade Chris Sale, Do Other Things

The 2018 World Series champ takes his talents to Atlanta. On that, who they got for him, what comes next, what it all means, who what when where why and oh the Red Sox signed Lucas Giolito too oops

The problem with analyzing any single trade or signing during the off-season is that everything is a part of a whole. But, right now in late December, we don’t yet know what the whole is.

Red Sox fans spent the last month plus complaining that the team hadn’t done anything when there was somewhere between two and three months until Opening Day and the vast majority of free agents hadn’t yet signed. Then Friday we got news that new(ish) President of Baseball Operations Craig Breslow signed free agent starter Lucas Giolito to a one-year, $18 million contract with a player option for another season at $19 million (it’s been framed as a two-year deal with an opt-out which is the same thing).

Then, just as you started to wonder how the Red Sox were going to fit Giolito into a rotation with Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, and Chris Sale, Breslow up and trades Sale.

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So that’s the big news. Chris Sale was traded to the Braves for infielder Vaughn Grissom.

CHRIS SALE WAS TRADED! AAAAHHHHH!!!!

[pause]

AAAAHHHHH!!!! [resumes sprinting in circles around the couch]

It’s not like it hadn’t occurred to me that Sale might be traded. In fact I might’ve even written about it as an option coming into the off-season (I refuse to check because that would entail me reading my writing which, no, absolutely not) but jeez. Let that sink in. Sale has been such a huge part of the Red Sox since coming over from Chicago before the 2017 season. He was the big ace the team was missing, which is ironic I guess because the Red Sox just traded him despite very publicly searching for the big ace. But whatever.

Whether it was because he was dominating on the mound, or couldn’t get on the mound because of injury, Sale has seemingly been the focal point around here since 2017. That’s a long time. Do you know how much gas cost in 2017? Probably like a dollar or something. Whatever. It was a long time ago. Sale has been a Red Sox a long time, so it’s strange to say good-bye to all of that, the good and the bad.

But say good-bye we must. What did the Red Sox get in return for that good-bye? They saved $10 million (that’s Sale’s $27 million salary minus the $17 million they’re sending along with Sale in the deal) and, perhaps more germane to baseball fans reading this, they received 22-year-old middle infielder Vaughn Grissom. So unless you were looking forward to watching a pile of money at second base for the Red Sox in 2024, this is good (though you could make an argument that a pile of money would be the best second baseman Boston has seen since Dustin Pedroia).

The Braves took Grissom in the 11th round out of high school in the 2019 draft and he’s bounced in and out of Top 100 lists since then. The scouting report is that while he’s played mostly shortstop, he’s not a shortstop. His arm is poor and he’s not athletic enough for short, but the whole package should play at second. Or, failing that, in an outfield corner. This is all depending on who you talk to. Some people/scouts/analysts think he can play second well or well enough, and some don’t. It seems the Red Sox think he can play it well enough because, well, they just traded Chris Sale for him.

At the plate, Grissom offers above average bat-to-ball skills (i.e. he makes good contact). He also walked a lot while not striking out much in the minors. That’s good! And in fact his slash line from his time in the minors is quite good as well: .320/.407/.477. That walk rate has been consistently good during his time in the minors and he’s never struck out above 15 percent of the time, which in today’s game is impressive.

While he’s been selective and good at putting the bat on the ball in the minors, his limited time in the majors has been more of a mixed bag. In 64 over two seasons as a 21- and 22-year-old the walks evaporated and while there was still a good amount of contact, much of it was weak. So that’s the fear; that he doesn’t have the bat speed to impact the ball and there will be below average defense and a bunch of weak contact.

But! The kid is going to be just 23 next season. And his minor league track record suggests there’s a usable major leaguer in there, even if not a super star. If he grows into more power, something some scouts suggest is possible, then pair that with above average on-base skills and you’ve got a pretty good player. At just 23 with six years of team control, that’s a pretty good get for Boston.

So that’s Grissom. To the bigger picture: all this activity points towards more activity. If you believe in Grissom as a middle infielder, which the Red Sox must, that makes it much easier to trade one of the organization’s top middle infield prospects, like Ceddanne Rafaela, Nick Yorke, and/or Marcelo Mayer.

Presumably moving a piece as big as Mayer would be a part of adding a big major league piece in return, either a top of the rotation starter or some sort of star hitter (though it sure seems the first one is the big target). But those guys are far more on the table now in trade talks than they were yesterday at this time, and that presumably puts more of Boston’s trade targets on the table as well.

So in a vacuum the Sale trade makes sense. You’ve added a young, cost-controlled middle infielder who you believe in, and you’ve opened up payroll, a roster spot, and made it easier to dip into the organization’s top prospects, all for further trades to (presumably) enhance the major league roster.

But I can also see the other side of it. There’s a reasonable possibility that Sale was the closest the Red Sox were going to get to an ace this off-season. Yes, he was already on the roster, but whatever. Nobody the team was going to acquire had Sale’s upside, which is substantial. And now he’s gone and the money savings and roster spot has already been spent on Lucas Giolito, a lower-ceiling’d player, and if you don’t believe in Grissom, then the Red Sox have just re-added a cheaper version of Luis Urias.

Your mileage may vary.

Getting back to the off-season as a whole, it has been speculated that the Red Sox would add two starters, one in a trade and one through free agency. It has been further speculated that one starter would be a top-of-the-rotation starter and the other would would be more of a three/four/five type who could provide innings. Giolito fits that second description well.

He’s thrown 524 innings over the last three seasons and with an above average strikeout rate. There’s things to not like (tons of homers, not many ground balls, maybe too many walks as well), but there’s a consistency there that the Red Sox have been lacking. If you want someone to take the ball and give you six innings while keeping you in the game, Giolito is a reasonable option, and maybe better than anyone the Red Sox had on the roster at the time of his signing, save Bello. That includes Sale.

As for finding an ace though, that’s where things get more complicated. If the Sox are now willing to deal Mayer, who does that put into play? Are the Mariners still looking to deal one of George Kirby or Logan Gilbert? Are the Marlins willing to move Jesus Luzardo? How about Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Luis Castillo, or Pablo Lopez? If you’re willing to trade your top prospects, those names are more attainable. Should you trade Mayer for any of those? Maybe not! Maybe! I don’t know!

All of that brings us back to the first paragraph. (This article is nothing if not a snake eating its tail.) We don’t know how this all fits together because we don’t know what the other pieces are. The Red Sox traded Sale and added Grissom and Giolito. Does that make them better in 2024? Honestly, in my most humble of opinions, probably not. But it makes them cheaper, more consistent in the rotation, and gives them more flexibility. As for the rest, we’ll just have to wait.

Thanks for reading.