2019 Yankees Off Season / Spring Training Thread

[Shark58]

Sonny is a Red

 

[Shark58]

3:40pm: Passan tweets that the trade now looks to be a three-team deal involving the Mariners. The Yankees are flipping Long to Seattle and receiving outfield prospect Josh Stowers — the Mariners’ second-round pick from the 2018 draft.

3:30pm: The Reds are also acquiring lefty Reiver Sanmartin in the deal, tweetsBobby Nightengale Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The Reds are sending Long and their Competitive Balance Round A draft pick to the Yankees in the deal.

3:25pm: Rosenthal tweets that there is an extension in place. Gray has agreed to a three-year deal spanning the 2020-22 seasons. He’ll be guaranteed an additional $30.5MM on the contract, which comes with a $12MM club option for the 2023 season. There are $500K worth of incentives based on innings pitched in each new season of the deal, and his annual salaries can grow based on performance escalators.

3:23pm: Second base prospct Shed Long is headed to the Yankees in the deal, tweetsPassan. Fancred’s Jon Heyman identified Long as a likely name to change hands over the weekend.

3:17pm: Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that Gray is “expected” to sign an extension with Cincinnati.

3:12pm: After several days of reporting and speculation, right-hander Sonny Grayhas indeed been traded from the Yankees to the Reds, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). Cincinnati reportedly emerged as a front-runner to land Gray last Friday, though reports over the weekend indicated that the Reds were working to agree to an extension with Gray before agreeing to complete the deal. It’s not yet clear if a new contract has been agreed upon, but there was a 72-hour extension window that was set to expire at some point Monday.

It’ll be the third rotation addition made by the Reds this season, as Gray will join lefty Alex Wood and fellow righty Tanner Roark in a new-look Cincinnati rotation that’s also projected to include Luis Castillo and Anthony DeSclafani. That quintet figures to give the Reds a vastly more competitive outlook in 2019, and the trio of new arms will likely push names such as Robert Stephenson, Brandon Finnegan, Tyler Mahle, Jackson Stephens and others out of the Major League rotation mix and either into bullpen roles or back to the minors (Stephenson, it should be noted, is out of options).

A change of scenery for Gray, 29, only makes sense after he struggled profusely with the Yankees in 2018 — particularly when pitching at Yankee Stadium. Gray posted a ghastly 6.98 ERA at home in 2018 compared to a 3.17 ERA on the road, and while there’s surely more at play in those splits than the surface-level numbers exhibit, the contrast between the two numbers is unequivocally jarring.

The Reds quite likely found it encouraging that Gray’s velocity remained consistent with its previous levels (93.8 mph average fastball), that his swinging-strike rate remained north of 10 percent and that his ground-ball tendencies (50 percent) remained well above league average. Gray actually allowed home runs at his lowest rate since 2015, as well (0.97 HR/9; 13.3% HR/FB) despite pitching more than 40 percent of his innings at the homer-friendly Yankee Stadium. Of course, he’ll be moving to a similarly hitter-friendly setting in the form of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, though the move to the National League should prove beneficial.

With the extension now in place, the trade of Gray differs starkly from Cincinnati’s acquisition of Wood and Roark, each of whom is a pure one-year rental. In essence, it’s a bet that the move into a lower-pressure setting could help Gray in a similar manner that Matt Harvey seemed to benefit following his own trade over from the Mets this past May. Gray, it should be noted, is not far removed from an extended run as a high-quality arm; the former No. 18 overall draft pick entered the 2018 season with a career 3.45 ERA in 770 1/3 innings, highlighted by an All-Star nod and a third-place Cy Young finish in 2015.

While it may be too much to expect for Gray to return to those lofty heights, he at the very least has the potential to help comprise a radically improved Reds rotation and gives the team some long-term stability a a time when many of the pitching prospects acquired over the course of Cincinnati’s rebuild have yet failed to pan out.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

The short version:

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[KaiserUEO]

3:40pm: Passan tweets that the trade now looks to be a three-team deal involving the Mariners. The Yankees are flipping Long to Seattle and receiving outfield prospect Josh Stowers — the Mariners’ second-round pick from the 2018 draft.

3:30pm: The Reds are also acquiring lefty Reiver Sanmartin in the deal, tweetsBobby Nightengale Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The Reds are sending Long and their Competitive Balance Round A draft pick to the Yankees in the deal.

3:25pm: Rosenthal tweets that there is an extension in place. Gray has agreed to a three-year deal spanning the 2020-22 seasons. He’ll be guaranteed an additional $30.5MM on the contract, which comes with a $12MM club option for the 2023 season. There are $500K worth of incentives based on innings pitched in each new season of the deal, and his annual salaries can grow based on performance escalators.

3:23pm: Second base prospct Shed Long is headed to the Yankees in the deal, tweetsPassan. Fancred’s Jon Heyman identified Long as a likely name to change hands over the weekend.

3:17pm: Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that Gray is “expected” to sign an extension with Cincinnati.

3:12pm: After several days of reporting and speculation, right-hander Sonny Grayhas indeed been traded from the Yankees to the Reds, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). Cincinnati reportedly emerged as a front-runner to land Gray last Friday, though reports over the weekend indicated that the Reds were working to agree to an extension with Gray before agreeing to complete the deal. It’s not yet clear if a new contract has been agreed upon, but there was a 72-hour extension window that was set to expire at some point Monday.

It’ll be the third rotation addition made by the Reds this season, as Gray will join lefty Alex Wood and fellow righty Tanner Roark in a new-look Cincinnati rotation that’s also projected to include Luis Castillo and Anthony DeSclafani. That quintet figures to give the Reds a vastly more competitive outlook in 2019, and the trio of new arms will likely push names such as Robert Stephenson, Brandon Finnegan, Tyler Mahle, Jackson Stephens and others out of the Major League rotation mix and either into bullpen roles or back to the minors (Stephenson, it should be noted, is out of options).

A change of scenery for Gray, 29, only makes sense after he struggled profusely with the Yankees in 2018 — particularly when pitching at Yankee Stadium. Gray posted a ghastly 6.98 ERA at home in 2018 compared to a 3.17 ERA on the road, and while there’s surely more at play in those splits than the surface-level numbers exhibit, the contrast between the two numbers is unequivocally jarring.

The Reds quite likely found it encouraging that Gray’s velocity remained consistent with its previous levels (93.8 mph average fastball), that his swinging-strike rate remained north of 10 percent and that his ground-ball tendencies (50 percent) remained well above league average. Gray actually allowed home runs at his lowest rate since 2015, as well (0.97 HR/9; 13.3% HR/FB) despite pitching more than 40 percent of his innings at the homer-friendly Yankee Stadium. Of course, he’ll be moving to a similarly hitter-friendly setting in the form of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, though the move to the National League should prove beneficial.

With the extension now in place, the trade of Gray differs starkly from Cincinnati’s acquisition of Wood and Roark, each of whom is a pure one-year rental. In essence, it’s a bet that the move into a lower-pressure setting could help Gray in a similar manner that Matt Harvey seemed to benefit following his own trade over from the Mets this past May. Gray, it should be noted, is not far removed from an extended run as a high-quality arm; the former No. 18 overall draft pick entered the 2018 season with a career 3.45 ERA in 770 1/3 innings, highlighted by an All-Star nod and a third-place Cy Young finish in 2015.

While it may be too much to expect for Gray to return to those lofty heights, he at the very least has the potential to help comprise a radically improved Reds rotation and gives the team some long-term stability a a time when many of the pitching prospects acquired over the course of Cincinnati’s rebuild have yet failed to pan out.

Da-fuq??

I need Tarantino to make this make sense for me.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Da-fuq??

I need Tarantino to make this make sense for me.

Ah, ok, lemme see what I got...

Ok, so, all you see is black, and then you see a trunk door raise, but like, from the perspective of the trunk. Brian Cashman and Brad Pitt are standing there.

Cashman says "We traded Sonny Gray for an outfield prospect named Josh and a draft pick."

Pitt drops an eph bomb.

Scene.

 

[Shark58]

Da-fuq??

I need Tarantino to make this make sense for me.

Da Farquhar

 

[Noexcuse]

Ah, ok, lemme see what I got...

Ok, so, all you see is black, and then you see a trunk door raise, but like, from the perspective of the trunk. Brian Cashman and Brad Pitt are standing there.

Cashman says "We traded Sonny Gray for an outfield prospect named Josh and a draft pick."

Pitt drops an eph bomb.

Scene.

Boils down to salary dump I guess.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Ah, ok, lemme see what I got...

Ok, so, all you see is black, and then you see a trunk door raise, but like, from the perspective of the trunk. Brian Cashman and Brad Pitt are standing there.

Cashman says "We traded Sonny Gray for an outfield prospect named Josh and a draft pick."

Pitt drops an eph bomb.

Scene.

You would’ve needed to have the words after ‘we traded’...muffled out, before the Fluck bomb.

Then cut to Bruce Willis on chopper with obscure 70s song playing, that will be back in the top 10 by Opening Day.

 

[MSOrange]

Well he's one Yankee I'll have to cheer for. Very impressive comeback.

 

[br801]

The short version:

So the Yankees shed Long.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[Noexcuse]

Interesting. Singleton retires then comes back. Leitet comes back then retires.

 

[kirbivore]

Interesting. Singleton retires then comes back. Leitet comes back then retires.

I wish Kay would retire

 

[donniesyracuse]

I wish Kay would retire

Sterling first, please!

 

[Noexcuse]

I wish Kay would retire

Pretty sure that Kay and Leiter are besties. I wonder if the booth was just a little too crowded and Leiter decided to pack it up. They still have Coney, O'Neill, Flaherty, Singleton, Kay, some fill ins, and Scooter (in spirit).

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[Briancuse]

MOOSE !!!

Its funny for years I didn't think he was a hof the more I looked at his numbers the more I came around he deserves it.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OrangeXtreme]