Chris Sale agrees to 5-year extension with Red Sox

BOSTON — Red Sox ace Chris Sale has agreed a five-year contract extension with the team tying him to the Red Sox through the 2024 season.

The Boston ball club announced that they had inked the ace to a five-year deal worth $145 million. The contract does include a vesting option that could give Sale an additional year in a Red Sox uniform. The deal was initially reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic.

Sale, who will turn 30 at the end of March, was set to hit free agency at the end of the 2019 season. The extension, which begins at the end of this season, locks up the left-handed pitcher through the end of the 2024 season.

The Red Sox announced the extension on Saturday morning with an official release and a series of tweets from their team account. A press conference was held Saturday morning at JetBlue Park in the Red Sox South Florida Spring Training facility to announce the extension.

The lefty was set to make $15 million in 2019 before the extension was reported.

Now, Sale will make $30 million for the first three years of his new deal - which starts at the end of his current contract that runs through the 2019 season. After 2022, Sale will earn $27.5 million per season for the final two years of his deal.

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There is an opt-out clause in Sale's deal after the third season in 2022. The contract also has the potential to keep Sale in Boston an additional year, with a sixth-year vesting option built in depending on the number of starts the ace makes. That vesting option is worth at least $20 million, according to Passan.

The pitcher's earnings can also go up due to incentives built into his contract. According to the team, Sale's deal includes escalators based on Cy Young voting finishes from 2021-2024 and the following season, if he hits his vesting option.

Sale will, reportedly, also have a no-trade clause in his new deal beginning in 2020.

In two years with the Red Sox, Sale has twice been named to the All-Star Team – starting both games for the AL – and has finished in the top five in Cy Young voting both seasons. He’s gone 29-12 in 59 starts for the Red Sox while tallying a 2.56 earned-run average.

In the postseason, Sale was Boston’s Game 1 starter in all four of the series he’s appeared in. The Red Sox won three of those four games that Sale started, all of which came in their 2018 championship season. The 6-foot-6 lefty also closed out Game 5 of the World Series in 2018, clinching the fourth Red Sox title in 14 years.

Boston acquired Sale from the Chicago White Sox in December 2016 for a bevy of prospects including Michael Kopech and Yoan Moncada. In his first season in Boston, Sale led the majors with 214.1 innings pitched and 308 strikeouts as he finished second in Cy Young voting – the highest finish of his career.

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In 2018, Sale managed 158 total innings, his lowest of any year as a starter. That decline was largely due to a stretch of Disabled List – now called the Injured List – stints in the second half of the year; Boston placed him on the DL due to mild inflammation in his throwing shoulder.

Earlier this week, the Red Sox named Sale as their Opening Day Starter for the second year in a row.

With Sale’s signing, the Red Sox will have seven players from their 2018 postseason roster potentially hitting free agency at season’s end.

Fielders Mitch Moreland, Steve Pearce, Eduardo Nunez, Brock Holt and Xander Bogaerts are currently all playing on expiring contracts in 2019, while pitcher Rick Porcello is the lone starter slated to hit free agency after the season.

Designated Hitter J.D. Martinez has a player option at the end of this season, meaning he could hit the open market if he chooses to going into 2020.

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