On Dec. 30, 2023, the Red Sox traded Chris Sale to the Braves for Vaughn Grissom, and sent $17M to cover Sale’s salary to boot. Here’s what that trade looked like in our model at the time:

 

 

So it was accepted by our model, albeit as a major overpay by Atlanta.

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Fast-forward one year: Sale has won the Cy Young Award, after producing 6.4 fWAR in a remarkable comeback season. Grissom has struggled badly, producing -0.7 fWAR. So from today’s perspective, the Braves clearly won the trade. 

Interestingly, some of our followers on Twitter/X resurrected our tweet about the trade from a year ago. Several of them suggested, in essence: You guys got it wrong! Your model is broken!

So let’s dig into that a bit. 

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No, we did not get it wrong. And no, our model is not broken. Yes, it’s fun to look back at trades a year later (or longer) to see who “won” the deal. We do that ourselves. Hindsight is 20/20, after all. If the same trade were made today, here’s what it would look like:

 

 

It’s so unbalanced that it’s fair to say that same trade would not happen today – unless, perhaps, the Red Sox kicked in another $17M to even it out. And even then, probably not.

That’s because trades are not made one year into the future, with a crystal ball where the outcome is known. They’re made in the present, with only the information available to each party at that point in time, with elements of risk and luck playing a part. 

And on that day, here’s what we (and the Braves, and the Red Sox, and the industry) knew:

 

Performance projection

Sale was coming off a three-year stretch in which he had done next to nothing, suffering through multiple injuries and ineffectiveness. In 2021, he produced 0.8 fWAR; in 2022, it was 0.2. He did put up 2.1 fWAR in 2023, but it was a far cry from his peak years of 2012-2018, where he typically produced 5-7 fWAR per season. 

He was also 34. Given the realities of aging, the probability of a rebound looked more and more remote at age 35 and beyond. Most projection models (ours included) focus on the previous three years, weighting the most recent ones the heaviest, with some allowances for injury cases. 

So it looked like Sale would deliver, if healthy, something in the range of 1.5 to 2 fWAR in 2024, as a 35-year-old whose best years were well in the past. And given his injury history, that was arguably optimistic. 

Keep in mind there’s a bell curve embedded in projections – on the negative end of possibilities, there’s a chance (albeit a smallish one) that the player is a total bust. Think Jordan Montgomery in 2024. On the other hand, there’s a chance (albeit a smallish one) that the player delivers a roaring comeback season, and wins the Cy Young Award. That’s what Sale delivered – an outcome on the extreme positive end of possibility. 

But the most likely outcome was that he would deliver a performance in the middle of the bell curve (our 1.5 to 2-WAR estimate). Clearly the Red Sox saw it that way as well; otherwise, they would not have made the deal.

As we said in a follow-up tweet at the time of the trade:

These two players have larger error bars than most - Sale for his upside, age and recent injury history, Grissom for his youth, lack of MLB playing time and uncertain position.

 

Salary projection

Meanwhile, Sale was owed $27.5M for 2024, with a $20M option for 2025, which could vest based on performance and awards targets. Suffice to say, there was a lot of risk there for the acquiring team. As we noted:

…the model projects Sale to be worth $21.8M (including market adjustments) in his one year of team control. Subtracting his $27.5M salary gives you a surplus trade value of -$5.7M.

 

So his $27.5M salary was underwater, which is why Boston paid a big chunk of it down to get a promising young prospect back.

Our projection of Sale's field value at $21.8M seemed more than reasonable for a pitcher with his profile going into his age-35 season. (Compare that to a 35-year-old free agent starter today whose best years are behind him, but might still have some gas in the tank – say, Nathan Eovaldi, who projects to be worth a little over $20M for one year in our model.) 

 

Grissom

Grissom, on the other hand, had shown promise, particularly as a hitter, and came with five years of cheap control. In his abbreviated MLB debut in late 2022, at age 21, he turned some heads with a slash line of .291/.353/.440. It felt rushed, though, as he had skipped AAA, so the Braves sent him to Gwinnett for more seasoning in 2023, where he hit .330/.419/.501, for a 135 WRC+. Defensively, he was not a lock for 2B, but the bat looked great.

But again, nothing is certain, and so far he's delivered on the negative end of the bell curve as well, slashing an atrocious .190/.246/.219 in 31 games with Boston.

 

Summary

So, at the time of the deal, Sale was an injury-prone, 35-year-old starter, on a big contract; Grissom was a promising young hitter. Seemed like a smart deal for Boston, right? Trade away an arm in decline for a young bat. Throw in some money to cover the difference in value. That’s what they were thinking.

The fact that Sale went on to have an extraordinary year, while Grissom struggled badly, could not have been known to anyone at the time, and represented extreme, low-probability outcomes on both sides.

So, sure, it’s fun to look back and see what now looks like a lopsided trade. But no one can predict the future – not us, not competent MLB general managers, not anyone. There is an element of luck in every outcome. Everyone is making their best guess based on the information available to them at the time. And at that time, the deal made a fair amount of sense for both sides.