A pitch for Sale
Sox enter talks with lefty ace, Bogaerts
FORT MYERS — The Red Sox are hoping to avoid another Jon Lester disaster with Chris Sale.
Less than a week ago, Sale said his phone still hadn’t rung as it relates to the Sox initiating dialogue about a contract extension.
But yesterday morning, Red Sox chairman Tom Werner said the club has engaged with Sale, along with shortstop Xander Bogaerts, about extensions to keep two of the club’s most important players in Boston long-term.
“Conversations have been had, but I don’t really want to get into any further details, aside from, as I said, these are great players,” Werner said. “In a perfect world, we’d love to them to be with us for the rest of their careers.”
That the Sox were willing to sign Nathan Eovaldi to a four-year pact worth $68 million in the offseason could have been seen as a signal of non-confidence in their willingness/ability to extend Sale, who is a free agent after the 2019 season. And David Price decided not to opt out of his deal, meaning $195 million already is committed to two pitchers from 2019 through 2022.
But with Sale and Rick Porcello both entering free agent years, and the Sox without any mouth-watering starting pitcher prospects close to the big leagues, extending Sale could become a priority.
“He’s healthy,” principal owner John Henry said. “He had minor issues. They were able to take their time and give him some rest at one point, but he hasn’t had any significant shoulder issues — not significant.”
Last time the Red Sox tried to engage in contract negotiations with the ace of their staff, it ended poorly.
Their now-infamous lowball offer to Lester before the 2014 season destroyed their relationship with the lefthander and led to Lester eventually being traded midseason and signing with the Cubs in the offseason.
Have the Sox learned their lesson?
“I think we blew the Jon Lester — we blew the signing in spring training,” Henry said. “And for reasons that are pretty apparent now, which I won’t go into, but they’re apparent. But it wasn’t … you can see what’s gone on in free agency. The price of WAR has gone up radically that it’s difficult, whether it’s a pitcher or a position player, entering into a really long term contract with high dollars.”
Sale turns 30 in March, making him above the age limit that Henry so memorably talked about during the Lester years. Pitchers above 30 added significant risk to a team engaged in a long-term deal with that player, Henry suggested at the time.
“I think Chris falls out of the norm because he’s just such a great, not just a great pitcher, but a great part of the team as we saw in the World Series,” Henry said. “He had quite an impact just being on the bench in the World Series. So he’s a special player.
“We would love to be able to sign him. I think he would like to as well. But there are the realities of the market place and budgets and this is his opportunity to be a free agent, potentially, which we’d like to avoid, but I think he would as well. So something could happen.”
The most significant risk with Sale is that he’s coming off a year in which shoulder inflammation ruined his chance at his first Cy Young Award and caused him to miss two months of the season. He was scratched from a World Series start and asked the team to keep the details of his injury quiet.
But whatever the details are, the Red Sox know them better than anyone.
The slow free agent market and potential shift in spending in Major League Baseball could lead to an ideal time to lock up core players to extensions.
“You’ve seen in baseball, there’s been less and less players signed before they hit free agency, it seems to me,” Henry said. “It works both ways. Maybe with the state of the free agent market at this point you’ll start to see it happen again.”
The Yankees just extended their ace, Luis Severino, with a four-year, $40-million deal that covered his arbitration years with an option for one of his free agent years.
“I think the Yankees made a very fair deal with Severino,” Werner said.
No matter how baseball shifts in its philosophy on free agent contracts, Henry said he’s not expecting a strike by the players.
“Mid-season this year? That’s crazy,” he said. “A lot has been said about the free agent market, but it is a free agent market. It’s a free market. And a free market doesn’t always do what you want it to do.
“If there are issues, and I’m sure there are some legitimate issues because moneys that were going into free agency now tend to go into different areas simply because WAR is so expensive, I think, and it’s a function of how expensive free agent WAR is. It’s up 50 percent probably in the last four years. So, you’ve got that going on. But if the players are unhappy with this, the they should engage.”