Despite Cy Young glory in Atlanta and a title in Boston, the dominant southpaw’s historic legacy belongs to Chicago, where his journey to Cooperstown truly began.
Chris Sale has been one of the most dominant pitchers of this generation.
When it’s all said and done, Sale will find his name in the Hall of Fame. The 37-year-old left-hander is widely regarded as a lock to make the Hall of Fame whenever he decides to hang up his cleats.
However, Sale still has a few elite years left. Even in his 16th Major League season, the 10-time All-Star is pitching the best he ever has. The Atlanta Braves left-hander has a career-best 2.06 ERA, 1.000 WHIP, and a 30.7% strikeout rate across 144 innings pitched this season.
Sale has really been dominant for this Braves team in 2026. His best start of the year actually came in his most recent outing on Thursday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He threw his first complete-game shutout since 2019 and also threw a 100 mph pitch for the first time in eight seasons.
It’s really mesmerizing what Sale has been able to do this late in his career. It feels like he is getting better the older he gets and has shown no signs of slowing down in his age-37 season.
When Sale does eventually retire and is elected to the Hall of Fame, he will get the opportunity to represent whatever team he wants. Some fans believe that Sale would represent the Braves. He won the National League Cy Young Award with them in 2024 and has had his best seasons in a Braves uniform.
While all that is true, Sale should go into the Hall of Fame sporting that iconic White Sox logo.
The White Sox are where Sale spent most of his career. He pitched the first seven seasons of his Major League career with the White Sox from 2010 to 2016. The southpaw had a career 3.00 ERA and a 1.065 WHIP across 1,110 innings pitched. He made five All-Star appearances while finishing top-6 in American League Cy Young voting in five of those seven years.
Chicago is where everything started for Sale. He was drafted by the White Sox with the 13th overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft, and this is the team that really helped establish him as a top starting pitcher in the league.
The White Sox eventually traded away Sale after the 2016 season, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is where it all started.
Sale played six seasons with the Red Sox and was a World Series champion with them in 2018. However, he dealt with a lot of injuries in Boston over those six years. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 and failed to throw above 105 innings in three of those six campaigns.
There is an argument to be made about Sale selecting the Braves as his team in the Hall of Fame since he’s been so dominant. He has a career 2.33 ERA across 447 ⅓ innings with the Braves since 2024. But he’ll likely only pitch four to five seasons here.
It just makes too much sense for Sale to enter the Hall of Fame as a White Sox. His total WAR in Chicago (30.2) is almost doubled his total WAR in Boston (17.0) and Atlanta (15.3).
