Braves' Chris Sale Named National League Cy Young Award Finalist

The Atlanta Braves Triple Crown winner is one step closer to taking home the top award for pitchers

The Triple Crown winner is a finalist to be a Cy Young Award winner / Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Chris Sale has been named a finalist for the National League Cy Young Award. 

Your 2024 @officialBBWAA NL Cy Young Award finalists:

Chris Sale
Paul Skenes
Zack Wheeler pic.twitter.com/AYmSCW6Azm

— MLB (@MLB) November 12, 2024

Sale is within striking distance of taking home his first career Cy Young. Between 2012 and 2018, he received Cy Young votes every season, finishing as a finalist twice - in 2014 and 2017. 

He’s never received more than two first-place votes for the award. We’ll find out soon enough if that changes. The winners will be announced on Nov. 20. 

The Braves lefty has been seen as a favorite for the Cy Young for most of the 2024 MLB season. After winning the first NL Triple Crown since 2011, he’s seen as nearly a shoo-in. 

Since the Cy Young Award was introduced in 1957, a Triple Crown winner has won the award every single time. 

Sale finished the season with a record of 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts. Along with the Triple Crown stats, he also had a 2.09 FIP, a 0.5 home runs per nine innings, 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings, a 1.01 WHIP, 174 ERA+ and was named to his eighth career All-Star team. 

This would be the top award among what he has already taken home this winter. He won Outstanding Pitcher of the Year at the Players Choice Awards. 

Should he win the Cy Young, it would cap off a successful renaissance season. Sale battled injuries for the better part of five seasons and was inconsistent when he did get on the mound. 

When the Braves acquired him back in December, the decision was brought into question because of how long it had been since Sale was a top starting pitcher in the league. 

However, he went out there and proved everyone wrong. While an injury took him out at the end of the season, he still successfully pulled off a return to form.