We can sit here all day and argue about who jinxed who by saying they were 100 percent healthy but at the end of the day, will it make us any happier?

Still can't believe they gave him that contract.

At least the team is replacing him in the rotation with Kutter Crawford, rather than Pivetta or Kluber. This year is all about sorting out who is part of the franchise's future, and who is not. The rotation is now currently:

Paxton
Bello
Whitlock
Houck
Crawford

The reality is that at least two of those guys (Paxton and Whitlock) are prime candidates to miss time in the next few months; the only minor-league starter on a track to get to the majors anytime soon is Shane Drohan, and he is not ready; and Pivetta and Kluber may well end up back in the rotation before too long.

A fundamental problem the team has faced since 2019 (really even 2018, but the team was so good around him it didn't matter) is that it is structured from both a payroll and personnel perspective around Chris Sale as an ace. But in the last 4.5 seasons, he has pitched a total of 254 innings, starting 47 times. Because Dombrowski traded most of the bullets in the minor-league chamber to get that 2018 juggernaut, there has been little ready-to-go talent from the minors to provide cheap answers that balance out Sale's large contract. Frankly, Bloom getting Whitlock for nothing, and Pivetta in a deadline deal; and the development of Crawford, Bello, and Houck, have made the situation less awful than it easily could have been!

Still, the way Bloom has tried to limp along with the albatross of Sale's contract using up a lot of his srotation money is by taking chances on broken or aging pitchers willing to take short-term deals: Richards, Perez, Kluber, Paxton, Hill, Wacha. Honestly, those have probably worked out about as well as you could've hoped, too!

So here we are again in 2023. Will Sale pitch again this year? If he does, do we sort of need to go back to a six-man rotation? Kluber has been awful, so when he was demoted from the rotation last week, Twitter Red Sox Nation was like, "Cut him!", but here's the thing: You knew that between Sale, Paxton, and Whitlock, we're probably going to need Kluber and Pivetta to start again.

Since the 21-14 start, the team is 9-15, and the wheels are starting come off in the rotation, the bullpen, 2B, SS, and CF. I'm excited to see if these younger pitches can be effective; if Casas can continue to emerge; if Yoshida can keep his wonderful season going; and to see Marcelo Mayer keep having more days like yesterday (3 hits, 2 SBs, strong defense, etc) at SS.

Someone on Twitter, in response to the news Sale was on the IL again, posted the meme of the sheep getting freed from the ditch. I'm still laughing just thinking about it.

A fundamental problem the team has faced since 2019 (really even 2018, but the team was so good around him it didn't matter) is that it is structured from both a payroll and personnel perspective around Chris Sale as an ace.

Sale was paid $12.5M in 2018 and $15M in 2019. There is no way that is onerous or difficult to build the rest of the roster around. Obviously his extension has been terrible but the Sox spend so much they should be able to take the hit.

How about the $29M in 2020 and 2021 the Sox paid Pedroia and Price? That's some real value.

Certainly, Boston has worn some contracts as albatrosses over the past decade. That Pablo Sandoval deal was a real doozy, as well.

But with Price, at least they paid him big money because that was the price of signing a free agent not already on the team. And Pedroia was very much underpaid for many years, so I don't have a problem with the last few years of his deal after his physical decline.

But Sale was such an unforced error - they already had him under contract, as you note, at below-market dollars, and they gave him the long-term, big money deal even after the lights were flashing about his medical future. I suspect part of it was that the team gave up multiple elite prospects, and then won a World Series, so maybe keeping in the fold was part of making the trade look good?

FWIW, it looks like Boston won that trade, even with Sale's injuries: Yuan Moncada was as good a prospect as you could find in baseball, and he has been a disappointment with the White Sox. Michael Kopech was an elite prospect, as well, and showed flashes of complete dominance...but injuries and uneven performance have made him a disappointment, too. The other two prospects didn't pan out at all.

But Sale was such an unforced error - they already had him under contract, as you note, at below-market dollars, and they gave him the long-term, big money deal even after the lights were flashing about his medical future.

The extension came in March of 2019 - which otherwise would have been his last year with the Sox. Yes, he missed a few games in 2018, but he finished the season with 158 IP at 209 ERA+. And this was after three straight 200+ IP years (including leading the league in 2017). There's no reason to think this wasn't just a blip for Sale, similar to his 2014 season.

Sale extension thread
There is one comment I saw after briefly scanning that had any reservation about the signing.

There's no reason to think this wasn't just a blip for Sale, similar to his 2014 season.

Does, "he's a pitcher" count as a reason?

Does, "he's a pitcher" count as a reason?

Sure, if you want the Sox to never sign a pitcher to a large contract, go for it. But SBPT was OK with the Price signing, so that's not the argument being made here.

Personally, I think it the Eovaldi signing was much more impactful. He was much more of an injury risk and more easily replaced. Going into 2019 the Sox had Sale, Price, E Rod, & Porcello, with Hector Velasquez, Brian Johnson, & Steven Wright as 5th/6th starter potentials. On paper that gets it done. Instead the Sox tripled down on pitching without a long term plan for Betts in place, just very poorly thought out (they also signed Steve Pearce to a bad contract after his 2018 postseason heroics). Obviously didn't work out great in 2019, Sale was not #1 starter material and missed a few starts, same for Price, Porcello sucked, Eovaldi sucked and got hurt, and all other options sucked or got hurt as well.

Sure, if you want the Sox to never sign a pitcher to a large contract, go for it. But SBPT was OK with the Price signing, so that's not the argument being made here.

That's not the point. If a pitcher is coming off an abbreviated season, as Sale was, there is ample reason to think it might not be a blip. And, as it turns out, it wasn't.

Assuming he only has shoulder soreness, I'd be happy to take Sale on the Cardinals. That's a great contract if he can perform. If.

Wasn't Sale's build and his delivery always considered a sign that he was a big risk to break down?

Another thing to consider is that Sale's possible fragility, coming off a 158 IP season, was baked into the contract. He got a 5 year, $145 million extension, structured in a way to count as ~$25 million/year AAV. At the time, pitchers of his caliber were getting $200 million + and $30 million + per year.

So yeah, it's gone really poorly. But it's not like they just ignored his health when signing him.