On paper, Chris Sale accomplished plenty during his seven seasons with the Red Sox.
The southpaw finished second in the AL Cy Young Award voting and ninth in AL MVP voting during his first season with Boston in 2017, going 17-8 with a 2.90 ERA and a whopping 308 strikeouts in 214.1 innings of work.
The following year, he helped a dominant 2018 roster win a World Series — posting a 2.11 ERA over 27 starts before striking out Manny Machado for the final out of Boston’s title run.
But those impressive early returns gave way to disaster, especially after signing a five-year, $145 million extension with the team in March 2019.