NORTH PORT, Fla. — It was almost as if the two parties had an epiphany, a “wait, why are we waiting around to do this when we can get it done now?” moment.
After Braves starter Chris Sale began spring training by publicly expressing his desire to remain with the organization, and after Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos spoke glowingly about Sale’s short tenure with the team, the two decided to come together on a contract extension.
That extension was announced Tuesday.
“You look at this organization, you kind of take a wide frame of it and take a step back and look at everything as a whole: We have a great manager, we have a great front office, we have a core group of players here that are gonna be here for a while,” Sale said Tuesday at CoolToday Park. “We got some good young talent for a while coming up. I’m excited for that. I wanna be here for that.
“And it gets you guys off my back asking me if I’m gonna retire at the end of this year.”
The Braves gave Sale a one-year contract extension to the tune of $27 million for the 2027 season. There’s a club option for the 2028 season worth $30 million.
Sale has had nothing but success on the mound since joining the Braves in 2023 when the Red Sox traded him in exchange for infielder Vaughn Grissom. Sale, whose initial contract ran through the end of the 2026 season, has gone 25-8 in 50 outings with a 2.46 ERA, made two All-Star Games and won the Cy Young for his 2024 season.
“Talking to him at the time (he arrived via trade), I don’t know that he was thinking he’d pitch this long,” Anthopoulos said Tuesday. “I think at the time we did the (first) extension, I don’t wanna speak for him, but at the time the sense I got was, ‘Hey, this might be my last deal.’ And then he wins the Cy Young.
“It’s a credit to him. I think this organization breathed new life into him, and, obviously, he deserves all the credit in the world. He’s the one who put the work in.”
Sale, a Florida native, turns 37 at the end of March. His new extension could keep him pitching for the Braves as a 39-year-old, which is a bit of a risk from a health standpoint.
And health has been a bit of a concern for Sale during his Braves tenure — back spasms forced him to miss the 2024 playoffs and a fractured left rib cage in June sidelined Sale for a couple of months last season.
But Sale’s first outing of spring training included three strikeouts and a 96 mph fastball, and he looks poised to begin the regular season firing on all cylinders.
“It took a lot of work from a lot of different people. I’m thankful for that,” Sale said. “If you’d told me when I was 21 years old and just got started that this was how it was all gonna play out — this is what I dreamed of doing, but you’d kind of think it would be crazy at the time. Just thankful for all the people that got me here.
“I know that a lot of people just think this is something that I was able to do and I’m the one out there pitching and all that stuff, but there’s so many people, so many hands, a lot of voices and just a lot of people I leaned on to get to this point. Just very, very thankful for that.”
Sale began his MLB career more than 15 years ago with the White Sox, as a reliever drafted out of Florida Gulf Coast. He has made the All-Star team nine times since becoming a starter in 2012 and is likely on the way to the Hall of Fame postretirement.
But retirement now seems at least a few years away for the staff’s wise, yet still hard-throwing, veteran.
“This clubhouse needs a resident old guy,” Sale smiled, “and I’d like to be that guy for a while.”
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