St.Louis Cardinals remain busy this offseason, sign free-agent pitcher Sonny Gray to lead rotation
The St. Louis Cardinals will sign Twins’ free agent starter Sonny Gray to a three-year, $75 million deal, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.
Gray joins a Cardinals rotation that has already signed Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson.
Gray, 34, turned back the clock with the Twins last season. He pitched to a 2.79 ERA/2.73 FIP, the ERA was his best since it was 2.73 in 2015 and his the FIP was a career best. Gray made 32 starts, which was the most he had since 2014 when he threw 219 innings.
The right-hander’s impressive 2023 season earned him a nod to his third All-Star game and was second to Gerrit Cole in AL Cy Young Voting. This was the closest Gray ever became to taking home the award.
In his last two seasons with Minnesota, he started 56 games overall. He compiled a 2.90 ERA striking out 300 over 303.2 innings. Most impressively he limited hard contact as he only gave up 19 total homeruns.
The righty was drafted 18th overall in the 2011 draft by the Oakland Athletics. Gray put himself on the map with Oakland in 2015, where he was third in Cy Young voting at 25 years old. That season also marked back to back years of over 200 innings of work.
The Tennessee-native has never relied on strikeouts over his 11 year career. He has 1521 career strikeouts in 1571 innings. With the exception of 2022, he was in the 70th percentile or better in groundball rate dating back to 2015.
For the postseason, Gray has started six games between Oakland, the Yankees, and the Twins. His best outing was in the 2013 ALDS where he threw eight shutout innings.
Gray pitched in the ALDS last season and got roughed up by the Astros only last 4 innings and giving up four earned runs.
With the Cardinals signing three pitchers, the supply is lowering. However, the demand is still there with only one team completing these deals. Gray is unlikely to get the market moving that much, but basic economics would show the prices for the remaining free agents will rise.
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