Sonny Gray

[DHonks]

I like our current rotation, but if it only takes a Supak or Stokes, I'd do it.

[HiAndTight]

I’d take a flyer on Gray but I don’t want to give up Zack Brown. I’d be willing to move two lower level prospects or lower ceiling guys like Ponce or Diplan.

 

 

Same here. 99 pct of the names thrown out on here I'm totally indifferent to.....and I'm by no means confident he would be a stud for us, but he does seem like the type of guy who could catch lightening in a bottle as a more seasoned, smarter pitcher in a small market playing for a new contract(he is going to be a FA, next year, right?).

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I'm just getting sick of the "he might be traded" scuttlebutt. Cashman needs to crap or get off the pot for heaven's sake. If any teams gives up an upper-end prospect for him, I'm gonna be mad.

[Madhawk23]

Can someone explain to me why Cashman came out right at the beginning of the offseason and basically outright said that they were going to move on from Sonny and trade him? What negotiating advantage does that give them? Why not just keep that information to yourselves, and try to keep some of your negotiating power with other teams? Yes, it may still leak out anyway that you are looking to move him, but it just seemed very odd that Cashman took the route of spilling the beans from the outset that they had every intention of moving him this winter.

 

Now watch - I'm sure some desperate team will still give them a top prospect for him.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Can someone explain to me why Cashman came out right at the beginning of the offseason and basically outright said that they were going to move on from Sonny and trade him? What negotiating advantage does that give them? Why not just keep that information to yourselves, and try to keep some of your negotiating power with other teams? Yes, it may still leak out anyway that you are looking to move him, but it just seemed very odd that Cashman took the route of spilling the beans from the outset that they had every intention of moving him this winter.

 

Now watch - I'm sure some desperate team will still give them a top prospect for him.

 

I saw some scuttlebutt from Yankee fans that a trade of Gray, Kahnle and a mid-level prospect for Bumgarner was going to happen. That would make me sick. That's like the Brewers dealing Chase Anderson, Jacob Barnes and Olczak for Bumgarner. Yankee fans are equal parts pretentious and delusional.

[FVBrewerFan]

I guess I don't see the issue. Cashman made it known Gray was on the block, which isn't always a bad idea. It lets all the other teams know he's ready to move him for the right deal. So far he hasn't seen a good enough offer to pull the trigger, has nothing to lose by waiting longer. He'll always be able to move him a month from now and get something in return, so why not try to get the best deal he can? I mean, I hate the Yankees too, but I don't see them doing anything unusual here.

[Madhawk23]

I thought I read that with the signing of Ottavino that they will now need to cut someone to keep their 40 man roster at 40? Now, I suppose they might have someone else that they could cut if they can't find what they are looking for in a trade for Gray, but it seemed as if the Ottavino signing was now pushing them to make a decision on Gray?

[JosephC]

I wouldn't think Kahnle would have much of any value because he was rotten last year and his fastball velocity dropped from 98.1 to 95.5. He also was battling shoulder tendinitis. But in 2016-2017 he had a 2.60 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 2.63 FIP and 12.1 K/9. Wouldn't be unreasonable for a team to think he'd be over the shoulder tendinitis, velocity will tick back up and his performance would improve. He is controlled for 3 more seasons, and since he was bad last year he will only make a pretty reasonable 1.39 million in 2019.

 

I don't think trading 1 year of Bumgarner for 1 year of Gray and 3 years of Kahnle is that unreasonable. Gray and Bumgarner are both 29 years old. Last year Gray had a 4.17 FIP, Bumgarner had a 3.99 FIP. The Giants would also save 3.11 million in the swap.

 

I'd put Bumgarner's surplus value at 15 million (assumes 3 WAR in 2019) and Gray's surplus value at 5.1 million (assumes 1.4 WAR in 2019). Kahnle's surplus value probably somewhere between 2 and 5 million based on what happened last year (let's say 3 million). So I'd say the Yankees would be getting about +7 million surplus dollars in the swap which is a definite "advantage" but it's not a crazy suggestion. If a team is high on Kahnle and thinks he will bounce back...he'd only have to be good for a total of 1.6 WAR over three seasons to even this out from a projection standpoint.

 

Personally, I think if the Yankees threw in one more role-player prospect, then this deal would be a real even swap.

 

Yankees get:

LHP-Madison Bumgarner

 

Giants get:

RHP-Sonny Gray

RHP-Tommy Kahnle

RHP-Nick Nelson (#17 Yankee's prospect on MLB pipeline)

[Eye Black]

From Ken Rosenthal earlier this afternoon...

 

#Reds making progress in pursuit of #Yankees’ Sonny Gray, sources tell The Athletic.

 

Jon Heyman added the following...

 

In Sonny Gray talks, Yankees have shown interest in 2B prospect Shed Long and C prospect Tyler Stephenson from Reds, among others, who have a nice prospect list. A draft pick could also factor into a potential Sonny deal.

[JosephC]

Nice to see the Yankees have been gracious enough to back off the Taylor Trammell ask.

 

To ask for Stephenson or Long isn't a crazy, but it would still be an overpay IMO from the Reds standpoint. They should tell the Yankees to move about another 6 spots on the prospect list and then they will be in business.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Nice to see the Yankees have been gracious enough to back off the Taylor Trammell ask.

 

To ask for Stephenson or Long isn't a crazy, but it would still be an overpay IMO from the Reds standpoint. They should tell the Yankees to move about another 6 spots on the prospect list and then they will be in business.

 

You are assuming that the Yankees (or Reds) care in the least about an arbitrary prospect ranking. I mean, it is easy to determine what every team's top prospects are, but once you get past the first 5 or so, each team is going to have its own ranking system, and I wouldn't doubt that its different than the mlb or any other prospect ranking list that is available to fans.

[JosephC]

Nice to see the Yankees have been gracious enough to back off the Taylor Trammell ask.

 

To ask for Stephenson or Long isn't a crazy, but it would still be an overpay IMO from the Reds standpoint. They should tell the Yankees to move about another 6 spots on the prospect list and then they will be in business.

 

You are assuming that the Yankees (or Reds) care in the least about an arbitrary prospect ranking. I mean, it is easy to determine what every team's top prospects are, but once you get past the first 5 or so, each team is going to have its own ranking system, and I wouldn't doubt that its different than the mlb or any other prospect ranking list that is available to fans.

 

Really?!?! I never would have guessed.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Nice to see the Yankees have been gracious enough to back off the Taylor Trammell ask.

 

To ask for Stephenson or Long isn't a crazy, but it would still be an overpay IMO from the Reds standpoint. They should tell the Yankees to move about another 6 spots on the prospect list and then they will be in business.

 

You are assuming that the Yankees (or Reds) care in the least about an arbitrary prospect ranking. I mean, it is easy to determine what every team's top prospects are, but once you get past the first 5 or so, each team is going to have its own ranking system, and I wouldn't doubt that its different than the mlb or any other prospect ranking list that is available to fans.

 

Really?!?! I never would have guessed.

 

Sorry if that came across as snarky. I didn't intend it to. It just bothers me when the national talking heads take prospect rankings as gospel. It's typically how fans immediately decide whether a team "wins" a trade too. It just gets old is all. Sorry if you're offended.

[JosephC]

No worries, and I'll apologize as I was being overly flippant in my response.

[JosephC]

Sounds like the Reds are about to so something really stupid. Yet again New York can make a bad move only to have a small market team help them out by getting all stupid when dealing with the almighty Yankees.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

 

Long, Stevenson and a sandwich pick for Gray? Wow, that seems like a lot.

 

Brewer equivalent would probably be Payton Henry, Mauricio Dubon and someone like Caden Lemons. For one year of Gray? Yikes, that's rich.

[JosephC]

Seriously, outside of FIP, is Gray really any better than Chase Anderson?

 

2016-2018:

Chase Anderson = 451 innings, 3.71 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 4.66 FIP, 114 ERA+, 2.52 K/BB

Sonny Gray = 409 2/3 innings, 4.59 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 4.21 FIP, 93 ERA+, 2.37 K/BB

 

I'd bet just about anything if Stearns would shop Anderson and say he wants two legitimate top 300 prospects plus a comp pick, the rest of the league would be figuratively laughing at him. And that is with Anderson having a far, far more favorable contract situation than Gray.

 

But if it's the Yankees the rules are just completely different.

[JosephC]

 

Long, Stevenson and a sandwich pick for Gray? Wow, that seems like a lot.

 

Brewer equivalent would probably be Payton Henry, Mauricio Dubon and someone like Caden Lemons. For one year of Gray? Yikes, that's rich.

 

Brewer equivalent would be higher than that IMO. Comp balance A picks almost always wind up in a teams top 10 prospects unless the team has a really loaded farm system. Long and Stevenson would be top 10 prospects in the majority of farm systems. Since there are 30 teams that puts all three of these assets as top 300 prospects. In that list of Brewers, only Dubon would qualify as a top 300 prospect and he'd be at the tail end of that, likely behind both Long and Stevenson (although the difference would not be all that significant).

 

I'd say the Brewer equivalent is more like Lutz, Erceg and Dubon. If the Yankees get Long, Stevenson and a comp balance A pick, it truly is a hideous deal for the Reds. I see it as legitimate 30+ million in surplus value heading to New York. Gray would have to be a 3.5 WAR pitcher in 2019 to even out this swap, and Gray has been a 1.4 fWAR/bWAR pitcher on average over the last three years.

[TURBO]

I can't wait for him to be off the market one way or the other. It causes me anxiety to think there is even an outside chance that we give up the kind of package that is being mentioned above.

 

*shudder*

[82brewcrew82]

I can't wait for him to be off the market one way or the other. It causes me anxiety to think there is even an outside chance that we give up the kind of package that is being mentioned above.

 

*shudder*

Agreed and I'm not even sure what all that value is being given up for. If Cashman gets anywhere close to that it will be a masterful job of asset management.

[SRB]

Comp balance A picks almost always wind up in a teams top 10 prospects unless the team has a really loaded farm system.

 

Do you think so? I'd be interested in this empirically, but I'm skeptical. A first round pick in the top 20 generally ends up toward the top of the prospect list if the system is barren, but even with an average system that pick is lower (like with the Brewers and Turang) much less a guy outside the first round entirely.

[JosephC]

Last year the comp balance A picks were:

 

Gunnar Hoglund - Pirates - unsigned

Cadyn Grenier - Orioles - #9 on MLB Pipeline (average farm system)

Xavier Edwards - Padres - #18 on MLB Pipeline (probably the #1 rated farm system in baseball)

Jake McCarthy - Diamondbacks - #8 on MLB Pipeline (poor farm system)

Kris Bubic - Royals - #9 on MLB Pipeline (poor farm system)

 

Previous year:

Drew Rasmussen - Rays - unsigned

Jeter Downs - Reds - was #12 at end of 2017

Kevin Merrell - A's - was #14 at end of 2017

Tristen Lutz - Brewers - was #6 at end of 2017

Brent Rooker - Twins - was #14 at end of 2017

Brian Miller - Marlins - was #14 at end of 2017

 

So I stand corrected SRB, average over the last two years has been #11.5. A bit lower than I anticipated. Probably would be most fair to value a competitive balance A pick as a top 300 - 400 pick as 11.5 times 30 teams equals 345. Even though that is only a sample size of 9 players, just looking back I think the list probably does do a pretty good job of evening out systems as there seemed to be a pretty decent representation of good systems, OK systems and bad systems.

[3and2Fastball]

Seriously, outside of FIP, is Gray really any better than Chase Anderson?

 

2016-2018:

Chase Anderson = 451 innings, 3.71 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 4.66 FIP, 114 ERA+, 2.52 K/BB

Sonny Gray = 409 2/3 innings, 4.59 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 4.21 FIP, 93 ERA+, 2.37 K/BB

 

I'd bet just about anything if Stearns would shop Anderson and say he wants two legitimate top 300 prospects plus a comp pick, the rest of the league would be figuratively laughing at him. And that is with Anderson having a far, far more favorable contract situation than Gray.

 

But if it's the Yankees the rules are just completely different.

 

I'm surprised that Gray is that close to Anderson in stats considering you are eliminating Gray's best season of 2015 while including Anderson's best year of 2017

 

When you look at 2015-2018 it is closer:

Anderson 3.86 ERA, 109 ERA+, 4.53 FIP, 1.239 WHIP

Gray 3.96 ERA, 105 ERA+, 3.95 FIP, 1.281 WHIP

 

I think one could make the argument that Anderson has been better, he was really good in 2017. Anderson's FIP is way too high, and he gives up too many HR's. Neither of them have really been all that great over the last 4 years, while both have had one very good year and had their moments.

 

If the Brewers were really high on Gray, he'd already be on the roster.

 

The one thing with Gray is that his away numbers in 2018 give me reason to think he could be a potentially productive pitcher again: 3.17 ERA, 1.16 WHIP

 

He sucks in Yankee Stadium. We all know that.

[brewer1]

I read that tweet as it being one of Long or Stephenson, not both.

[anglotiger]

I'm surprised that Gray is that close to Anderson in stats considering you are eliminating Gray's best season of 2015 while including Anderson's best year of 2017

 

While neither should be discounted, 2017 should be more relevant than 2015.

 

If the Brewers were really high on Gray, he'd already be on the roster.

 

The one thing with Gray is that his away numbers in 2018 give me reason to think he could be a potentially productive pitcher again: 3.17 ERA, 1.16 WHIP

 

I do think that these are fair comments...