Players · S · Pitcher · 2026 regular season

Chris Sale

Age: 37
B/T: L/L
Height: 6' 6"
Weight: 180 lb
Number: #51

Born: March 30, 1989 in Lakeland, FL, United States
MLB debut: August 6, 2010
Drafted: 2007, round 21
College: Florida Gulf Coast
High school: Lakeland
Salary, 2026: $18M

Compare with…vs Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs Jacob Misiorowski vs Dylan Lee

dbWAR: 59.9
IP: 162.2
ERA: 2.16
FIP: 2.29
K/9: 11.1
FIP−: 55

Chris Sale is a starting pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. In 2026 he struck out 200 batters over 162.2 innings across 27 appearances, 27 of them starts, going 14-9. His ERA of 2.16 was 48.4% lower than the league average of 4.18 — the second best on his team, and 30th of 539 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 2.29 FIP suggests the ERA was no fluke. He missed bats on 30.4% of swings (15.4% of every pitch he threw), walked 4.8% of the batters he faced and struck out 30.9%. His 5.6 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2026 regular season.

FIP2.29

K/911.1

WHIP0.98

WAR5.6

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2026	ATL	27	27	162.2	14	9	0	129	39	200	31	2.16	2.29	0.98	11.1	1.7	52	55	5.6
2025	ATL	21	20	125.2	7	5	0	102	36	165	32	2.58	2.67	1.07	11.8	2.3	62	64	3.6
2024	ATL	29	29	177.2	18	3	0	141	47	225	39	2.38	2.09	1.01	11.4	2.0	58	51	6.2
2023	BOS	20	20	102.2	6	5	0	87	49	125	29	4.30	3.80	1.13	11.0	2.5	99	88	2.0
2022	BOS	2	2	5.2	0	1	0	5	2	5	1	3.18	2.41	1.06	7.9	1.6	80	61	0.2
2021	BOS	9	9	42.2	5	1	0	45	15	52	12	3.16	3.69	1.34	11.0	2.5	74	86	0.9
2019	BOS	25	25	147.1	6	11	0	123	72	218	37	4.40	3.39	1.09	13.3	2.3	98	75	3.7
2018	BOS	27	27	158.0	12	4	0	102	37	237	34	2.11	1.98	0.86	13.5	1.9	51	48	6.0
2017	BOS	32	32	214.1	17	8	0	165	69	308	43	2.90	2.45	0.97	12.9	1.8	66	56	7.2
2016	CWS	32	32	226.2	17	10	0	190	84	233	45	3.34	3.46	1.04	9.3	1.8	80	83	4.5
2015	CWS	31	31	208.2	13	11	0	185	79	274	42	3.41	2.73	1.09	11.8	1.8	86	69	5.4
2014	CWS	26	26	174.0	12	4	0	129	42	208	39	2.17	2.57	0.97	10.8	2.0	58	69	4.6
2013	CWS	30	30	214.1	11	14	0	184	73	226	46	3.07	3.17	1.07	9.5	1.9	79	82	4.3
2012	CWS	30	29	192.0	17	8	0	167	65	192	51	3.05	3.27	1.14	9.0	2.4	76	81	4.2
2011	CWS	58	0	71.0	2	2	8	52	22	79	27	2.79	3.12	1.11	10.0	3.4	71	79	1.1
2010	CWS	21	0	23.1	2	1	4	15	5	32	10	1.93	2.74	1.07	12.3	3.9	47	67	0.5

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2021	BOS	1	1	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.3	-112	-0.0
2018	BOS	1	2	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	100.0%	.000	-0.5	-118	-0.0
2017	BOS	1	3	1	1	.333	.333	.667	.333	.500	0.0%	33.3%	.423	+0.2	166	0.1
2016	CWS	3	6	1	2	.167	.167	.167	.000	.250	0.0%	33.3%	.146	-0.8	-19	-0.0
2015	CWS	3	9	1	4	.111	.111	.111	.000	.200	0.0%	44.4%	.098	-1.6	-56	-0.0
2014	CWS	1	3	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	66.7%	.000	-0.7	-120	-0.0
2012	CWS	1	3	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	—	0.0%	66.7%	.000	-0.7	-111	-0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Chris Sale's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2026 Post	ATL	Postseason total · through Oct 6	3	2	12.2	0	1	12	6	2	1	19	4.26	1.03	13.5
		Wild Card	2	1	7.2	0	0	5	3	0	1	12	3.52	0.78	14.1
		NLDS	1	1	5.0	0	1	7	3	2	0	7	5.40	1.40	12.6
2021 Post	BOS	Postseason total	3	3	9.0	0	1	12	8	2	4	11	8.00	1.78	11.0
		ALDS	1	1	1.0	0	0	4	5	1	1	2	45.00	5.00	18.0
		ALCS	2	2	8.0	0	1	8	3	1	3	9	3.38	1.38	10.1
2018 Post	BOS	Postseason total	5	3	15.1	1	0	11	7	1	8	24	4.11	1.24	14.1
		ALDS	2	1	6.1	1	0	5	2	0	2	9	2.84	1.11	12.8
		ALCS	1	1	4.0	0	0	1	2	0	4	5	4.50	1.25	11.3
		World Series	2	1	5.0	0	0	5	3	1	2	10	5.40	1.40	18.0
2017 Post	BOS	ALDS	2	1	9.2	0	2	13	9	4	1	12	8.38	1.45	11.2
Career		Postseason total · 4 Octobers	13	9	46.2	1	4	48	30	9	14	66	5.79	1.33	12.7

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	162	152	35	1	5	53	.230	.273	.322	.267	32.7%
vs RHB	486	447	94	9	26	147	.210	.270	.300	.259	30.2%

Pitch sequencing

What Chris Sale throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamSliderChangeupSinker

Select a count to see exactly what Chris Sale throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	41.4%	1,065	96.1	2,350	55.7%	27.5%	237	.215	.639
Slider	39.9%	1,027	79.8	2,529	51.7%	38.2%	249	.185	.493
Changeup	10.3%	265	88.5	1,859	41.9%	30.3%	67	.284	.623
Sinker	8.4%	217	95.6	2,209	53.0%	10.6%	49	.265	.593

Chris Sale's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Nick PivettaSD

ERA: 2.86
FIP: 2.21
SO: 42
WAR: 1.2

Very close

Tarik SkubalDET

ERA: 2.72
FIP: 2.51
SO: 186
WAR: 4.9

Very close

Cam SchlittlerNYY

ERA: 1.95
FIP: 2.56
SO: 239
WAR: 6.2

Very close

Drew RasmussenTB

ERA: 2.67
FIP: 2.82
SO: 174
WAR: 4.8

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.