Boston Red Sox: Will Chris Sale Thrive in the Postseason?

You may have heard that the Boston Red Sox made some trade earlier this week, acquiring perennial Cy Young contender Chris Sale from the Chicago White Sox for a slew of top prospects. The question now is if this addition will pay off when the games matter most.

Chris Sale and I have one thing in common: Neither of us has pitched in a postseason game. That’s not a knock on Sale by any means–it takes much more than one great player on a team of 25 to make the playoffs. Call it the Mike Trout Conundrum.

The Boston Red Sox made the playoffs in 2016, and were likely to show up again in 2017 even without the addition of Sale. Their offense is going to be good, even without David Ortiz, and they already had enough solid arms to fill out a rotation. Having Sale on board gives them a boost in the rotation as well as depth.

He’ll certainly help them get to October, but what should we expect in his first taste of the postseason? I took a look at some of his stats on FanGraphs to see if I could piece this together.

In looking at his stats for low, medium and high leverage situations, it’s hard to truly assess how well he performs in high leverage situations, since only 16 1/3 of his total innings (out of 226 2/3) were in big spots. Here is what his high leverage stats look like compared to low and medium situations:

Low: 97.1 IP, 82 hits, 13 doubles, 1 triple, 15 runs, 15 ER, 12 HR, 21 BB, 97 K, .222 average, .273 OBP, .360 SLG, .276 wOBA.

Medium: 112.2 IP, 94 hits, 17 doubles, 48 runs, 48 ER, 14 HR, 21 BB, 120 K, .227 average, .281 OBP, .370 SLG, .282 wOBA.

High: 16.2 IP, 14 hits, 4 doubles, 2 triples, 25 runs, 21 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 16 K, .230 average, .306 OBP, .455 SLG, .319 wOBA.

While the amount of runs he gives up seems alarming in high leverage situations, it’s actually kind of normal for some of the game’s top pitchers in that situation. Max Scherzer only totaled 8 1/3 high leverage innings in 2016 and he gave up a total of 18 earned in that span. He also finished 3rd in fWAR among all MLB pitchers last season and took home his second Cy Young award.

The obvious upsides from the stats above is that his walk rate remains relatively steady compared to his medium rate and drops compared to his low rate. His strikeout rate remains at roughly a solid one per inning, too.

More from Call to the Pen

To go a littler further down this rabbit hole, let’s look at two other pitchers, both of whom are left-handers, and both of whom have postseason records that most fans can recount. First, let’s take a look at David Price, Sale’s new teammate.

High: 13.0 IP, 11 hits, 4 doubles, 26 runs, 25 ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 10 K, .239 average, .283 OBP, .553 SLG, .321 wOBA.

Of the two, Sale allows a lower batting average against, wOBA and slugging percentage, but a higher on-base percentage. Except for the slugging percentage, the numbers are fairly similar across the board, which may not bode well for Red Sox fans.

Then again, here is another comp (2016 stats) with a much better postseason resume:

High: 17.1 IP, 13 hits, 24 runs, 22 ER, 3 HR, 4 BB, 20 K, .213 average, .273 OBP, .386 SLG, .270 wOBA.

These numbers are better across the board, but they also belong to Madison Bumgarner, who doesn’t like to allow any runs in the postseason. By the numbers, Sale could be more similar to David Price’s postseason resume than Bumgarner’s, but with some lucky bounces Price could have a completely different narrative as well.

Next: Braves, Rangers Swap Former Top Prospects

Obviously there’s no telling just what kind of performance Chris Sale will put on during a potential postseason run with the Boston Red Sox, but this gives us an idea of how he has fared when the pressure was on. The lights will be brighter, and more attention will be paid to the Sox new lefty in 2017 than in any season of his career.

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