After years of coming close, Braves left-hander Chris Sale finally captured his first Cy Young award. The eight-time all-star joins the elite company, becoming the eighth pitcher in franchise history to win the award, and the first since Tom Glavine in 1998.
Sale became the first pitcher since Clayton Kershaw in 2011 to win the National League Triple Crown in a 162-game season, leading the league with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts.
During his time with the White Sox and Red Sox, Sale finished among the top six in American League Cy Young votes for seven consecutive seasons. This year, he received 26 out of 30 first-place votes. Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler earned the remaining four.
The Braves have now claimed eight Cy Young Awards, trailing only the Dodgers, who hold the MLB record with 12. The franchise’s illustrious list of winners includes Warren Spahn (1957), Tom Glavine (1991,1998), Greg Maddux (1993-1995) and John Smoltz (1996).
Sale’s win stood out, as he also won the National League Comeback Player of the Year award. The 6-6 southpaw totaled just 151 innings for Boston from 2020-23, overcoming several injuries, including Tommy John surgery, a rib fracture, a pinky fracture, a wrist fracture and a stress fracture in his left shoulder.
At 35 years and 184 days old at the end of the season, Sale became the sixth oldest first-time winner in MLB history.
“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 differently,” Sale said. “I feel like I definitely did that this year. I was able to kind of slow things down and appreciate baseball.”
Despite the injuries, the Braves showed confidence in Sale, acquiring him from Boston in exchange for $17 million and infielder Vaughn Grissom.
“My goal at the beginning of this year was just to be healthy,” Sale said. “Getting greedy and thinking of things like this would have been maybe a little over my skis. I was coming to a new team that made a trade for me, when I’m sure there were a lot of people that kind of gave that trade the side-eye when it first happened. … To say I’d be sitting here right now would be crazy. I just wanted to be able to do my job, really.”
The accolades kept coming as Sale earned his first career Gold Glove, adding to Atlanta’s storied defensive excellence on the mound. Remarkably, 20 of the last 47 National League pitchers to claim this prestigious honor have worn a Braves uniform.
Sale’s 18 wins and .857 win-loss percentage were both career-highs, and he wasn’t too far off from a 20-win season. Two of his three losses were decided by just one run.
To no surprise, Sale’s impressive season earned him a spot on the All-MLB first team. The All-MLB Awards were introduced in 2019 to recognize the best players at each position across the league. Several Atlanta Braves players have earned First Team All-MLB honors over the years, including Max Fried, Freddie Freeman, and Marcell Ozuna in 2020; Austin Riley in 2021; and Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Spencer Strider in 2023.
Sale enters the second season of his two-year, $38 million contract, and with the Braves core returning to full strength after injuries, Atlanta aims to make its first World Series appearance since winning it all in 2021.
