I don't have any video of myself watching and reacting to Chris Sale's start Thursday against the Athletics, but I think the following .gif will give you a pretty good sense of my emotional state:
Or maybe this one might paint a better picture:
That's what happens when you watch someone like Sale go from being the third-hardest throwing left-handed starter in the league to ... not that:
He averaged 89.1 mph with his fastball Tuesday, the lowest of his career. Over the past three seasons, his previous low had been 90.2 mph, more than a full tick higher than his Tuesday outing.
Velocity fluctuates for every pitcher, but this wasn't just a fluctuation. His average fastball velocity was down 3 mph from his first start of the season, which was an already-worrisome 92.3 mph. We've seen Sale succeed in the 92-93 mph range in 2016, although even then, his strikeout was well below career norms. That wouldn't be too worrisome, and Scott White wrote as much after his first start.
At 88-89 mph? The question Fantasy owners should be asking themselves isn't "should I be worried?" It's "how worried should I be?" To answer that question, we would need to figure out the reason why his velocity is down, and we just don't know that right now. We have guesses, and hints from the Red Sox's organization. But we simply don't know for sure.
Should you panicking? Maybe.
It's pretty obvious why, isn't it? Watching Sale on Tuesday was disheartening. He looked like a junk-baller. His slider looked more like a slurve, and it's hard to understand just how he got away with pitching the way he did. The Athletics were kept off balance, but with just six swinging strikes in seven innings, it would have been just a matter of time before they figured him out.
Velocity isn't everything, but dropping from 97-98 mph — where Sale was working last summer — to 88-89 mph is too massive to write off. And, while Red Sox manager Alex Coa did tell reporters Wednesday he isn't concerned about Sale's diminished velocity, he also said the team has not asked Sale to hold back his velocity early.
"I do feel that his velocity will come back," Cora said. "It's just a matter of when."
That sounds a little like wishful thinking. More concerning, however, it doesn't sound like it's a conscious decision. Which leads to the obvious question: Is Sale hurt?
It seems unlikely, given that the Red Sox signed him to a massive extension before the season. They've also consistently said there is no issue with Sale's shoulder, which he injured last season after dialing his velocity up to unprecedented levels in the summer.
They could be wrong, though. It wouldn't be the first time a player has tried to work through an injury without the team being aware of it. It's not fair to speculate on injuries, but it's also not unreasonable to think something isn't right, even if it isn't serious enough to rise to the level of getting trainers involved. If he is dealing with something that might rise to the level of injury, that's pretty much the worst-case scenario for Fantasy players.
However, the idea that he isn't hurt is only slightly more calming. If this is all on purpose, then we can at least rule out injury. What we can't say is whether or when Sale will return to normal. If he's intentionally throwing below his max level, that's fine, but it's a strategy Fantasy players shouldn't be pleased with, given the obvious impact it has on his effectiveness.
If we knew this was only going to be an April thing, you could relax a little. If we knew he was going to ramp up as the season went on in order to decrease the wear on his arm, that would be great. It would just require a bit of patience — something Fantasy players notoriously have plenty of.
But we don't know that. We don't know if there is a switch he can flick in his next start and fix everything. The fact that his velocity was down another 3 mph in his second start seems to suggest it isn't quite under his control.
The most troubling fact is, we just don't know why. That uncertainty, more than anything else, hurts Sale's value. If there was some reason to believe he was going to pull out of this, you could just be patient and wait it out, or even go out and acquire Sale at a possible discount.
On the other side, if we had some sense that Sale just can't push himself to the mid-90s right now, it would make it a lot easier to say, "well, he's just not going to be himself this season." You could move him for what you can get now before things get uglier, or confidently say you don't want him in a trade.
Right now? We're stuck in the middle, and that's the worst part. You can't even panic, because we just don't have enough information to panic.
One thing is clear: Every Sale start is going to be an event moving forward, but not for the reasons they have been in the past.
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