Levine: 4 Or 5 Teams Could Have Eye On Chris Sale
By Bruce Levine--
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (CBS) -- The auction of White Sox left-hander Chris Sale began in earnest last July. The culmination of the process may end in a blockbuster deal at baseball's Winter Meetings, which began Sunday.
So far, all we know is there are likely four to five teams with good enough farm systems to make a deal with Chicago for Sale. And maybe only a couple of those clubs can offer the White Sox what they may consider to be equal value for the 27-year-old ace Sale.
The American League starter in the All-Star Game in 2016, Sale is the ultimate prize for a contender: a great competitor with a 96 mile-per-hour fastball who has learned how to pitch to contact. Sale threw 226 2/3 innings last season, just 3 1/3 innings behind Red Sox left-hander David Price, who led baseball with 230 innings.
Sale cut back his strikeouts and added more quality innings to his outings with more of a reliance on the two-seam fastball. He went wire-to-wire without as much as a hangnail, and his new approach to pitching was good for a 14-1 start to the season and a fifth straight All-Star selection.
Sale averaged seven innings per start, the highest average per outing in the game in 2016. In an era when we see four to five relief pitchers used per game, that's a crazy number. When Sale is on the mound, a team can count on going with him and then a set-up man and a closer for one inning each. That's a quality of his that's underrated and one that must be analyzed by teams trying to trade for him.
The lucky franchise that trades for Sale will find a young pitcher thirsty for a playoff-bound club. Sale has tired of pitching for teams that haven't been competing for a postseason berth. The only exception to that came in 2012, when the White Sox went in the thick of it until blowing a three-game division lead with two weeks left in the season.
The White Sox have signed their players to team-favorable contracts over the past decade. With Sale under contract for three more years at about $38.5 million, he represents about one-third of the cost of what the Dodgers pay left-hander Clayton Kershaw or the Nationals shell out for right-hander Max Scherzer.
Three controllable seasons for an ace with a relatively cheap contract is intoxicating. As the White Sox follow a new path, Sale will likely pitch next season for either the Red Sox, Rangers, Dodgers, Nationals, Braves or Astros. Those are the clubs who match up best in a trade, as each has multiple talented, young controllable position players.
White Sox general manager Rick Hahn will be center stage for the next week trying to implement the first part of his rebuild, which would be clear for all to see by trading Sale for a boatload of talent.
Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.