Earlier tonight, Atlanta Braves Chris Sale was named the National League Cy Young.
Chris Sale wins his first career Cy Young Award 🏆
A resurgent year for the lefty 📈 pic.twitter.com/pFpM7JfNUU
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 20, 2024
In 2024, Chris Sale became the first pitcher to win the NL Triple Crown, leading the league in strikeouts, wins, and ERA, since Clayton Kershaw did for the Dodgers all the way back in 2011. He earned 26 of a possible 30 first place votes and had a fantastic quote regarding the Braves Cy Young winners that have come before him.
Chris Sale has an awesome personality. This is a great quote to @ZachKleinWSB's question about joining the elite group of Braves Cy Young winners. Sale cracked up when saying it:
“I think I brought that group down a little bit, but I’m glad that I dipped my toe in that pool.”
— Justin Toscano (@JustinCToscano) November 21, 2024
Back in the 90s, the Braves were printing Cy Young award winners, with three different pitchers winning the award, However, as of today, Chris Sale is the only Cy Young award winner from the organization since the turn of the century.
Another interesting stat from Sarah Langs:
Chris Sale is the first pitcher to:
finish top-5 in Cy Young voting in 5+ straight years
then finish outside top 5 (or no votes at all) in 5+ straight yrs immediately afterAND THEN finish top-5 again after
AND HE WON!
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. baseball is the best@EliasSports
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) November 20, 2024
The Braves 2024 campaign is not one many Braves fans will look back fondly on. Many have dubbed it the season from hell, given the way injuries relentlessly ravaged the club from start to finish. However, Chris Sale might go down as the best acquisition of Alex Anthopoulos’ tenure. He was acquired last offseason for Vaughn Grissom, and the Red Sox even agreed to pay his salary this year following five injury-plagued seasons, only for him to turn around and win his first Cy Young award in his first year with the Braves.
It would be a helluva way to cap off a career that is now worthy of the Hall of Fame, but Chris Sale is far from done. He still has two years left on his contract with the Braves, and I think he’d say there’s a lot of unfinished business for this team to take care of after what happened this year.
