Somehow, this is Sale’s first Cy Young Award while he definitely took a long and winding road to get there, he’s grateful to have made it this far.
2024 NL Cy Young Award winner and Atlanta Braves star Chris Sale spoke with the media shortly after being named the winner and as you can imagine, he was very excited and grateful to have won the prestigious award. “It’s special [to win the Cy Young Award] and I appreciate it,” said Sale when he was asked about what it meant to be able to add his name to the illustrious list of winners.
As many people around baseball have marveled at the fact that this is Sale’s first Cy Young Award in what’s been an incredible career so far, it’s clear that he was very grateful to finally receive this particular accolade and also grateful for the path it took to get him here. “I appreciate it for obviously the accolade, the trophy and the recognition part of it but I appreciate more because it reminds me of the people that helped me get here,” stated Sale. “This wasn’t an easy way to get to winning this trophy for the first time. As soon as it happened, I’m thinking about people, teammates, trainers, coaches and family. It’s special to me because of all the hard work that other people put in to get me here.”
It’s also safe to assume that Sale was certainly counting his blessings about being able to bounce back the way he did after spending such a long time struggling with injuries. “I definitely feel like I appreciate it more now than had I won it during that stretch I had from 2012-2018. You learn a lot about yourself when things get taken away and you get them back, you learn to appreciate it a little bit more and you treat it a little bit differently. I feel like I definitely did that this year, where I was able to slow things down and appreciate baseball — where I was at, what I was doing and who I was doing it with.”
Chris Sale was effusive about the environment that he walked into upon being traded to the Braves. You hear it a lot from players who come into the Atlanta Braves organization and you can now count Sale as the latest player to sing the praises of this particular baseball club. “I can’t stress enough about that clubhouse and organization in Atlanta. Walking into that clubhouse was very comfortable and it’s a very easy clubhouse to get comfortable in,” said Sale as he talked about his experience with the Braves so far. “It says a lot about the guys, it says a lot about the coaching staff, the entire staff and obviously the culture that the front office set there. I’m thankful to them for making that happen for me.”
Sale was asked about whether or not he had the lofty heights of a Cy Young Award in mind when he started the season after getting traded from the Red Sox to the Braves. It’s safe to assume that hardly anybody had this in mind and you can include Chris Sale in that category as well. “My goal at the beginning of this year was just to be healthy,” stated Sale when it came to what he wanted to accomplish in the early going. “Getting greedy and thinking of things like [the Cy Young] would’ve been [a bit much]. Coming to a new team that made a trade for me when I’m sure a lot of people probably gave that trade the side-eye when it first happened and for [the Braves] to take a chance on me […] I just wanted to be healthy. To say I’d be sitting here right now is kind of crazy. I just wanted to be able to do my job.”
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Now that Chris Sale has a Cy Young trophy on his resume, the obvious step forward has been for observers to speculate about this potentially being Sale’s ticket to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Again, Sale kept things in perspective and stayed grounded in his response to that speculation. “That’s a decision for other people to make. My job doesn’t change one way or another. If it ended tomorrow, I got no chance and I got a lot of work to do,” said Sale. “My job is to go out there and give my team a chance to win and I want to be able to do that to the best of my ability.” He even had a bit of a light-hearted moment when talking about how this was his first season staying (mostly) injury free for a good, long while. “I mean, heck, I just had the first healthy season in five years and now we’re talking about the Hall of Fame. I’m just appreciative that I got through this one.“
Sale was asked to reflect on the tough path that the Braves took on their way to making it to the Postseason for yet another season. Like other people connected to the Braves who have had their take on how the season went, Sale was pretty happy with making it to the playoffs all things considered but still realized that there was more to be done. “We had a tough time with injuries this year. I think that we weathered that storm really well. I don’t think that a lot of teams would’ve been able to sneak into the playoffs the way we did, having the injuries we had to the key players who had them,” stated Sale, and it’s tough to disagree with him.
When it comes to guys like Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider, Sale is expecting his teammates to hit the ground running once they get back. “All of those players are going to be motivated to come back, to be healthy, to be strong and play hard.” He was also pretty excited to work with his rotation mates again, including two who are currently free agents. “Obviously with our pitching staff, you got myself coming back, I’d love to have Max [Fried] and [Charlie Morton] back and watching [Spencer Schwellenbach] develop and turn into who he’s going to be, I think that’s going to be a lot of fun. Any time that you’re left with a sour taste in your mouth, it should give you some motivation and being able to have almost the same team for three years, that should help a lot.”
In that same vein of how the season ended, Sale wanted to make sure that he didn’t have any regrets despite missing out on the final three baseball games that the Braves played in 2024. “We got after it trying to do everything we could to get me back out on the field. We had a schedule set where…I think I was slotted for Game 3,” said Sale when it came to what was going on behind the scenes in order to potentially get him ready for Postseason action.
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“It was kind of a weird situation where I actually ended up throwing a bullpen a couple of days after we got eliminated, just for peace of mind for myself, honestly — just to be able to say “Okay, if I had to go out there and pitch again, I would’ve been able to.” It put my mind at ease, as opposed to going into the offseason not really knowing. Getting on the mound and throwing 15 pitches in a bullpen gave me the reassurance that “Okay, you’re good, you would’ve been able to pitch and you can go into the offseason being able to do normal stuff without having to worry about things.”
Now that he’s got the hardware “somewhere where we won’t be able to see it,” Chris Sale has his eyes on the future and the good news in that regard is that he’s healthy and ready to go for 2025. “I put a lot of emphasis on my offseason. I’ve spoke a lot about how being able to do baseball stuff earlier sets the foundation for the rest of the year,” said Sale when asked about the impact of being able to go into 2024 healthy. “I’m thankful that I was able to do that and I’m honestly trying to mirror that as much as I can this offseason and staying the course. It worked last year so I’m going to try to do it to the tee again.” Here’s hoping that he’ll be able to keep things going in the correct path as he’ll certainly have a tough task on his hand to repeat the performance that he just had in winning the NL Cy Young Award here in 2024.