{"id":7525,"date":"2017-07-31T15:30:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T19:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=7525"},"modified":"2017-07-31T15:30:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T19:30:51","slug":"sonny-gray-traded-new-york-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/07\/31\/sonny-gray-traded-new-york-yankees\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Gray Traded to the New York Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Oakland Athletics have agreed to trade starting pitcher <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grayso01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sonny Gray<\/a><\/strong> to the New York Yankees. It was speculated for some time that Oakland would cash in on Gray&#8217;s value before it was too late. They did exactly that as the A&#8217;s will receive Yankees No. 4, 8, and 12 prospects in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fowledu01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dustin Fowler<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=mateo-000jor&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jorge Mateo<\/a><\/strong>, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=kaprie000jam&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Kaprielian<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Full trade: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grayso01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sonny Gray<\/a> and $1.5M in int\u2019l bonus money to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Yankees?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Yankees<\/a>; Fowler, Kaprelian, Mateo to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Athletics?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Athletics<\/a>. On it: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JackCurryYES\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JackCurryYES<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JeffPassan\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JeffPassan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/892099048806785024\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 31, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Sonny Gray Traded to the New York Yankees<\/h2>\n<p>The biggest benefit for the Yankees in adding Gray at this point is team control. Gray remains under contract and arbitration eligible for 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Gray was arguably the best starting pitcher available on the trade market this season. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/q\/quintjo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Quintana<\/a><\/strong> was also available <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2017\/07\/13\/cubs-acquire-jose-quintana-white-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">before being recently acquired<\/a> by the Chicago Cubs. Quintana has made five more starts than Gray this season, but Gray has been much more effective to date. Gray holds an ERA a half point lower than Quintana along with a stronger WHIP, walk rate, and home run rate.<\/p>\n<h3>Past Performance<\/h3>\n<p>It is important to remember that Gray is just two seasons removed from a third-place Cy Young finish in the AL. Gray endeared a rough 2016 season that saw him battle injuries and ineffectiveness. He posted career highs in losses, ERA, and walks per nine innings on his way to a 5-11 record over 22 starts.<\/p>\n<h3>Outlook<\/h3>\n<p>This season has provided encouragement that Gray has rebounded from his 2016 struggles. His walk, home run, and hit rates are all back into the normal range for a pitcher of his caliber. His strikeout rate has even climbed back up above his career average. In fact, his strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio are currently his highest in his career since his rookie season.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the prospects in this deal (Kaprielian and Fowler) are dealing with serious injuries. Still, the Yankees did give up a lot in obtaining Gray, but the cost of pitching is always high. Gray is at least a solid bet to be productive over the remaining two years of his contract and provide a boost to a team in the midst of a competitive season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/809393472\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 67.508418% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/809393472?et=y1lGRHM6RRpSpcp5XPzCIg&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=kZ7HiWTlXnom79YL-TkAV4-ysObZk_ls8SxCT2dP3BY=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"401\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Oakland Athletics have agreed to trade starting pitcher Sonny Gray to the New York Yankees. It was speculated for some time that Oakland would cash in on Gray&#8217;s value before it was too late. They did exactly that as the A&#8217;s will receive Yankees No. 4, 8, and 12 prospects in Dustin Fowler, Jorge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":7528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,15,5],"tags":[68,1281,1109,1108,69,978,41,652,650,49],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-athletics","category-yankees","tag-baseball","tag-dustin-fowler","tag-james-kaprielian","tag-jorge-mateo","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-trades","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-oakland-as","tag-sonny-gray","tag-trade-deadline"],"modified_by":"John Jackson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}