{"id":88114,"date":"2024-10-23T21:29:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T01:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=88114"},"modified":"2024-10-23T21:29:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T01:29:59","slug":"cardinals-sonny-gray-offseason-trade-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/23\/cardinals-sonny-gray-offseason-trade-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Veteran Starter Becomes Trade Candidate This Offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>St. Louis Cardinals veteran starting pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grayso01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sonny Gray<\/a>&#8216;s name has come up as a trade candidate for this upcoming offseason. The 34-year-old had a strong 2024 season with a 13-9 record, a 3.84 ERA, and 203 strikeouts across 166 1\/3 innings pitched. Several teams are seeking starting pitchers, and with Gray&#8217;s experience, he would be well-suited for a contending team.<\/p>\n<h2>Cardinals Veteran Starter Sonny Gray a Highly Desired Trade Candidate<\/h2>\n<p>Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak has already made it apparent that he wants to focus on giving the youngsters on the squad the chance to showcase their skills. &#8220;Ultimately, the direction that we&#8217;re going to be going, it&#8217;s going to be creating some opportunities for our younger players.&#8221; This would seemingly give their veterans the green light to explore other options as the team is looking to rebuild. Given the Cardinals&#8217; focus on developing young talent, if they decide to let go of Gray, they&#8217;ll want to utilize that to acquire young prospects. This means they would have to be accountable for the bulk of his existing salary.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Offseason Trade Candidate: Cardinals SP Sonny Gray<\/p>\n<p>Contract breakdown:<br \/>\n2025 &#8211; $25M<br \/>\n2026 &#8211; $35M<br \/>\n2027 &#8211; $30M (club option)<\/p>\n<p>STL is looking to cut payroll this winter and Gray\u2019s 30.3% strikeout rate this year was the second-best of his career.<\/p>\n<p>High-end SP2 for a contending team. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3TX6Lx0FxN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/3TX6Lx0FxN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB Deadline News (@MLBDeadlineNews) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLBDeadlineNews\/status\/1849138214381994241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The three-time All-Star <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/27\/sonny-gray-signs-st-louis-cardinals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">signed<\/a> with the Cardinals on November 27th, 2023 on a three-year $75 million contract including a club option in 2027. Gray was also the 2023 American League Cy Young runner-up when he played for the Minnesota Twins. This marked a huge milestone in his career, as he was the first Twins pitcher to make it as a runner-up for the award since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maedake01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kenta Maeda<\/a> in 2020. Accounting for Gray&#8217;s impressive 30.3% strikeout-rate, and his capability to eat up innings, he has come up as a possible candidate for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/20\/three-prospects-guardians-cleveland\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Cleveland Guardians<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With Gray&#8217;s time spent playing with the Oakland Athletics, he has strong ties with Guardians manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/vogtst01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Vogt<\/a>, who used to catch for Gray when he played on the A&#8217;s. One of the Guardians&#8217; top priorities this offseason is to pick up a starter. Gray also recorded a solid FIP this season (3.12) that ranked higher than Baltimore Orioles starter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/burneco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Corbin Burnes<\/a> (3.21) and Atlanta Braves starter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/friedma01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Fried<\/a> (3.33). Gray also possesses the strong asset of limiting walks, making him a desired starter to snatch up this winter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Matt Krohn-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Louis Cardinals veteran starting pitcher Sonny Gray&#8216;s name has come up as a trade candidate for this upcoming offseason. The 34-year-old had a strong 2024 season with a 13-9 record, a 3.84 ERA, and 203 strikeouts across 166 1\/3 innings pitched. Several teams are seeking starting pitchers, and with Gray&#8217;s experience, he would be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4831,"featured_media":88139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[25,1071,35],"tags":[48,258,5042,2231,421,283,650,907],"class_list":["post-88114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinals","category-mlb","category-news","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-corbin-burnes","tag-kenta-maeda","tag-oakland-athletics","tag-sonny-gray","tag-stephen-vogt"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88114","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\/4831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}