Under normal circumstances, a struggling pitcher with an ERA north of 5.00 wouldn’t inspire feverish trade speculation.
But the Oakland Athletics‘ Sonny Gray isn’t a normal struggling pitcher. And these aren’t normal circumstances.
Stephen Strasburg signed a seven-year extension with the Washington Nationals on May 10. Just like that, the only legitimate ace in next season’s shallow free-agent pool and one of the biggest possible trade-deadline prizes disappeared.
The demand for pitching, however, isn’t going anywhere. Toss a rosin bag—particularly in the wide-open American League—and you’ll hit a flawed contender with holes in its rotation.
Enter Gray and his 5.84 ERA.
That’s an ugly number, and it hasn’t been a pretty stretch for the Oakland right-hander. In his last four starts, he’s 0-3 with a 10.31 ERA, 14 strikeouts and nine walks in 18.1 innings.
He’s also 26 years old, owns a 3.13 career ERA, eclipsed 200 innings each of the last two seasons and finished third in American League Cy Young Award balloting in 2015. He’s under team control through the 2019 season. And he opened 2016 by going 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA and 24 strikeouts in 26.1 innings.
If you’re looking at recent results, there’s risk. If you focus on track record and body of work, it’s mostly reward.
Again, the pitching cupboards are practically bare. Among next winter’s free agents, second-tier talents such as the San Diego Padres‘ Andrew Cashner and New York Yankees‘ Ivan Nova could incite bidding wars.
And with the second wild-card slot keeping so many clubs on the fringe of the playoff picture, the list of true sellers could be exceedingly short come July.
Will the A’s be one of them? And if so, will they unload Gray?
At 19-22, Oakland sits four games out in the AL West entering play Thursday. A hot streak in the next few weeks might change the calculus, but right now, the A’s appear headed for a patented midseason sell-off.
There are other chips on the roster, including impending free-agent outfielder Josh Reddick. Gray, however, would be the big fish.
Here’s how ESPN.com’s Buster Olney assessed the situation in late April:
Whether the Athletics actually seriously consider trading Gray is something more likely to be determined in July than in April or May…
But history tells us general manager Billy Beane is always open to discussing a deal, especially when he perceives the value of a player to be nearing its apex, and Gray’s position in the market could be unique over the next 14 weeks. Considering the rest of the pitching landscape, Gray could be Mount Everest sitting in the middle of Death Valley.
That was before the Strasburg extension. Now, Beane and Oakland have even more leverage. They can toy with prospect-rich contenders and crank the price into the stratosphere.
The Boston Red Sox have a deep farm system and questions in the rotation. Same goes for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The St. Louis Cardinals could use another arm to support their potent offense, as could the Baltimore Orioles.
The Houston Astros‘ starting pitching is in disarray. The defending champion Kansas City Royals went out and got Johnny Cueto at the deadline last year and could go ace shopping again.
Really, it’d be easier to list the teams that wouldn’t at least put loafer to Goodyear if Gray is made available.
Yes, his early hiccups and crooked ERA dampen his value. A few strong starts, however, could reverse that in a hurry.
Gray expressed optimism after his most recent outing May 15, when he surrendered three home runs but lasted 5.2 innings in a 7-6 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays and made an in-game adjustment that helped him keep the ball down, per MLB.com’s Jane Lee.
“I’ve constantly been leaving the ball up, and you can tell,” Gray said, per Lee. “It was literally just a visual thing to get the ball back down, and you could tell there, when it’s back down, it’s got great life on it, and you start to see the swing and misses.”
Catcher Stephen Vogt concurred.
“He got his movement down in the zone back,” Vogt said, per Lee. “And I think for him he felt it and was excited when he came out of the game.”
Now, imagine if Gray builds on that and starts to look like this guy:
The Athletics, as Olney pointed out, don’t have to move him now. They could wait until the offseason, when teams will be scrapping over free-agent bones. Or they could hold him until next summer.
Beane, however, is always ready to pick up the phone. As the postseason races heat up, his line will start ringing—and a lot of the calls will be about Gray.
The risk is real. But, particularly in these pitching-starved times, so is the reward.
All statistics current as of May 18 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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