Chris Sale's latest setback shows signing to be another Red Sox mistake

We should be officially past the point where the Red Sox depend on Chris Sale going forward.

Tuesday’s developments were just the latest in a string of bizarre setbacks that have derailed the left-hander. Sale suffered a fractured right wrist in a bicycling accident near his suburban Boston home and will miss the remainder of the 2022 season.

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Sale was already sidelined due to a fractured left pinkie finger. That came on a wicked line drive back through the middle in a July start at Yankee Stadium. It was just his second outing of the season, a delay to midsummer caused by a stress fracture in his rib cage during spring training. Undisclosed illnesses, Tommy John surgery, shoulder problems — they've combined to limit Sale to just 212⅔ innings since August 2018.

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“You look forward and he should be fine,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “I know we keep saying that and things keep happening. This is just an incredibly bizarre run of events.”

Is this the new normal for Chris Sale?

When does the strange ultimately become accepted as the norm? It feels like we’re already there. Sale has two years remaining on the contract extension he signed prior to the 2019 season — in hindsight, a woefully misguided offering by former Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. That five-year, $145-million deal likely helped contribute to his firing later that year.

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Sale was shut down in August 2019 with a career-high 4.40 earned-run average. What was diagnosed as left elbow inflammation somehow felt more dire at the time it was publicly disclosed. Ultimately, it was. Sale was shut down during the following spring training and had surgery at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years passed before he returned to the mound for Boston in August 2021.

“It’s a lot for anybody, and even for Chris,” Bloom said. “He's one of the more mentally strong people you’ll meet. It’s a lot.”

Sale has made a total of 11 appearances and completed 48⅓ innings over the course of his extension. He’s still on the Red Sox books for $25.6 million over each of the next two seasons. There is a further $20-million vesting option for 2025 based on Cy Young Award voting the previous season. Current circumstances would suggest Sale will be short of the American League elite at that point in his career.

Red Sox rotation in tatters

Where does that leave Boston going forward? Its projected rotation from this spring in Fort Myers is officially in tatters. Nathan Eovaldi, Michael Wacha, Rich Hill and James Paxton — who has yet to appear in a game with the Red Sox — are all potential free agents. And even if Sale returns to full physical health, it’s unlikely he’ll be asked to make 30 starts or submit something approaching 200 innings next season.

“We haven’t gotten to the point of mapping out what his 2023 should look like in light of all the missed time,” Bloom said. “We’re obviously going to have to do that and be smart with it.

“One way or another, we’ve seen the need for it over this past month. If we want to play 162 [games] plus, we have to build our team to have a lot of starting pitching depth. That’s been a huge organizational focus over the last few years.”

Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock both have been used as prime bullpen options this season and would need to be stretched out prior to next spring.

Kutter Crawford seems capable of filling innings at the back end of the rotation — his fastball spin rate and ability to limit hard contact are both in the 78th percentile or better according to Baseball Savant.

Josh Winckowski has been less encouraging considering the same baseline for success. He's in the bottom 10% in terms of hard-hit rate, inducing swings and misses and forcing opposing batters to chase outside the strike zone.

SoxProspects.com lists seven pitchers among its current top 15 players in the Red Sox system. Winckowski checks in at No. 9. Brayan Bello shows significant promise but has made a total of 15 career appearances above the Double-A level. That inexperience is something he shares with most of his fellow aspiring Boston regulars — Bryan Mata, Brandon Walter, Chris Murphy, Connor Seabold and Thaddeus Ward are all varying levels of green, and none is projected as a frontline option in a contending rotation.

That could leave the Red Sox needing multiple moves from outside the organization to contend for their next postseason berth. Let’s hope this isn’t one of them  a trade of Sale’s contract attached to a valuable asset for further financial flexibility. The last time that happened was in 2020, and Boston sent half of David Price’s remaining $96 million along with Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong.

That mistake simply can't be repeated. Otherwise, the Red Sox could be paying another player no longer on the roster for the pleasure of watching Rafael Devers win his next World Series ring elsewhere.

bkoch@providencejournal.com    

On Twitter: @BillKoch25 

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Chris Sale's latest setback shows signing to be another Red Sox mistake