Cardinals Rumors: Should St. Louis consider a Chris Sale trade?

Chris Sale is an interesting trade target for the Cardinals

When it comes to upgrading the top end of the St. Louis Cardinals rotation for 2023, the options are thin at best. Currently, most of the top end pitchers that fans would want them to target (Tyler Glasnow, Shane Bieber, Max Fried, etc.) are just not available at the moment. Could they hit the trade block later this year? Potentially. But at the moment, the next time the Cardinals will have an opportunity to acquire an ace is next off-season.

There is one name that could be available this winter that would make for a very interesting buy low option, who could pay big dividends for St. Louis on their path toward a postseason run. After losing Xander Bogaerts in free agency and a Rafael Devers trade looming, the Boston Red Sox may want to move off of left-hander Chris Sale and the rest of his contract.

Let's address a couple of the elephants in the room before really looking into this. Yes, Sale is not the same pitcher he was from 2013-2018, where he finished top 6 in Cy Young voting ever single year. This is not the same as acquiring one of the top pitchers currently in the game. Second, his contract his huge, so any move for Sale would require the Red Sox to take on significant salary and/or eat up some of Sale's money.

With these things in mind, there is a really good case to be made that Boston could be motivated to deal Sale in the near future, and that the Cardinals would make a great landing spot, assuming the Red Sox eat money in this deal. Let's look at why Boston and St. Louis would consider this move, and what a potential deal could look like.

Why Boston would trade Chris Sale

For as much as Cardinals fans want to complain about the lack of spending from ownership (and rightfully so), Red Sox fans have to be losing their minds after losing another star because their front office would not give them an extension.

It started with the Mookie Betts trade a few seasons ago, escalated with Xander Bogaerts leaving for San Diego on a massive contract, and looks to be coming to a breaking point as the club and slugger Rafael Devers appear to be "miles apart" on an extension. It's clear that the Red Sox do not like wrapping up money in aging stars, and if they are about to plummet into a rebuild, moving Sale makes a lot of sense.

Even with Devers and Sale on the roster, the Red Sox are likely the worst team in the American League East, and it is hard to imagine a path toward contention in the next year or two. Boston has a solid farm system and could look to free up payroll moving forward and get an asset in return for their oft-injured ace.

Until the last few years, Sale has been one of, if not the most, reliable pitcher in baseball. He was consistently a top 5 starter in the game, and giving his club 170-220 innings a year. In recent years, he has battled some concerning injuries, but also had bad luck with some extremely weird injuries, including breaking his wrist in a bike accident, breaking his finger on a line drive, and a broken rib while throwing a pitch. Outside of his Tommy John surgery, all of those injuries appear to be flukey things.

Still, Boston has not been able to rely on him as of late, and they will not be contending this year, so why no get some kind of return on their asset and move on? St. Louis would have a greater need for him anyways.

Chris Sale still has the ability to lead the Cardinals rotation

The idea of trading for a starter who has been battling injuries might be unthinkable for some, but as we will get into, the cost to acquire Sale will be nowhere near the price of other starters on the market, and likely would not even remove St. Louis from the market for a "reliable ace".

Over the last two seasons, Sale has battled those freak injuries, limiting him to just 11 starts. He has still produced in those 48.1 innings, posting a 3.17 ERA and elite 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings. It's not like Sale has lost the ability to pitch, he just had maybe some of the worst injury luck in baseball history as of late.

It's one thing to acquire a starter with nagging elbow or shoulder issues. Those things are not just fluky, they are prone to continue. Yes, Sale had Tommy John surgery, but pitchers come back from that all the time now, and he has shown he is still close to his old form post surgery. The only thing that has been standing in his way is line drives and bike accidents.

With no clear options available on the market, why not take a swing at a guy who could very easily return to his elite form and give you an ace for the next 2-3 seasons, on what would be a bargain contract after Boston eats some of it. Sale has 2-years, $55 million left on his deal with a vesting option for 2025 at $20 million if he "places top 10 in Cy Young voting and remains healthy". Due to a bunch of deferments in his contract though, he only makes $17 million per year the next two years and $15 million in the vesting year.

Here is how St. Louis and Boston could come to an agreement that would benefit both sides for 2023 and beyond