{"id":168372,"date":"2025-09-25T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168372\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T15:22:08","slug":"sonny-gray-open-to-waiving-no-trade-clause-in-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168372\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Gray Open To Waiving No-Trade Clause In Offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Cardinals embarked on a self-proclaimed youth movement that commenced last offseason, veterans like Sonny Gray<\/a>, Willson Contreras<\/a> and Nolan Arenado<\/a> had control over their futures by virtue of their contracts\u2019 no-trade provisions. Arenado ultimately wound up considering trade possibilities anyhow, but Gray and Contreras quickly made their intentions to remain in St. Louis clear to the club. That won\u2019t be the case for Gray in the coming offseason, however. Asked following last night\u2019s game whether he feels he has to consider greenlighting a trade this winter, the former All-Star was candid in acknowledging a change in tune (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I do, just to be frank and to be honest. I definitely think I do. Whether I do decide that I want to go somewhere \u2013 whether that actually happens \u2013 I don\u2019t have complete control of that. Obviously, I have control of where I can\u2019t go or don\u2019t go. I\u2019m going to be 36. It\u2019s going to be my 14th season. Last year of my contract for this. I don\u2019t know what the future holds for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray, 36 in November, has enjoyed another solid season in 2025, pitching to a 4.28 ERA with a 26.7% strikeout rate, a 5% walk rate and a 43.9% ground-ball rate in 180 2\/3 innings. Metrics like FIP (3.39) and SIERA (3.29) feel he\u2019s been far better than that more rudimentary earned run average would indicate. Since signing with the Cards in the 2023-24 offseason, Gray has made 60 starts and turned in a 4.07 ERA (3.27 FIP, 3.16 SIERA) in 347 innings.<\/p>\n

On the surface, that performance and Gray\u2019s broader track record would seem to create plenty of trade value \u2014 but the right-hander\u2019s contract complicates matters. Even beyond the full no-trade protection, the backloaded nature of the contract will make it difficult for new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom (who was announced as current president John Mozeliak\u2019s successor last October) to extract real value in return for the former Cy Young runner-up.<\/p>\n

Gray is entering the final season of a three-year, $75MM contract. However, he earned just $10MM of that sum in year one of the contract and $25MM in 2025. He\u2019s owed a massive $35MM salary for the 2026 season and at least a $5MM buyout on a $30MM club option for the 2027 season. The Cards can\u2019t even pitch the \u201927 club option as a potential benefit, as Gray\u2019s contract stipulates that if his 2027 option is exercised, he can simply void the option and elect free agency. That would spare the team the $5MM buyout, but that\u2019s a major \u201cif\u201d at this stage.<\/p>\n

While we\u2019ve seen a select few pitchers secure an annual value exceeding the effective one year and $40MM remaining on Gray\u2019s contract, MLBTR\u2019s Contract Tracker shows<\/a> that it\u2019s been reserved only for clear Cy Young-caliber arms coming off peak seasons. Justin Verlander<\/a> and Max Scherzer<\/a> both secured $43.333MM annual values when they were even older than Gray, but Verlander was coming off an AL Cy Young win in 2022 and Scherzer had just posted a 2.46 ERA and finished third in NL Cy Young balloting the year prior. Zack Wheeler<\/a>\u2019s three-year extension with the Phillies pays him $42MM annually but was signed when Wheeler was a year younger and had turned in a combined 3.06 ERA in his previous 629 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Gray, of course, is a decorated pitcher himself \u2014 a former first-round pick and three-time All-Star who has twice finished in the top-three of American Cy Young voting. That includes a second-place Cy Young finish with Minnesota as recently as 2023. His work with the Cardinals has been a few steps below those other $40MM-per-year aces, however.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little doubt that Gray would be an in-demand commodity, in a vacuum. He\u2019s 13th among all major league pitchers in terms of innings pitched since the 2019 season and carries a strong 3.51 ERA in that time. He misses bats, boasts plus command and keeps the ball on the ground at a slightly above-average clip. If Gray were a free agent and were to declare that he would only sign a one-year deal, it\u2019s feasible that he could command close to $30MM, or perhaps even a slight bit more. Teams \u2014 especially big-market, high-payroll clubs \u2014 are often willing to pay a premium in terms of AAV to limit the long-term risk on free-agent contracts.<\/p>\n

Even if there are teams who value him in that range though, the Cardinals would need to eat around $10MM just to pay Gray down to market value. If they wanted to actually create the type of surplus value that would net them a notable return in terms of prospects, they\u2019d probably need to eat closer to $20-25MM of the contract. That probably wouldn\u2019t net them a premium prospect, but at that price point they could justify asking for a solid minor leaguer or two to add to the middle tiers of their farm system.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear how comfortable Cards ownership will be with paying substantial money to net a prospect return. If simply clearing salary is the goal, the Cards could probably eat $8-10MM and find a taker with little to no return \u2014 similar to the Cubs\u2019 trade of Cody Bellinger<\/a> to the Yankees last winter. The strength of any potential return will be contingent upon how much of the contract the DeWitt family is willing to pay down. Those are conversations that Bloom and ownership will have in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s clear at this point is both Gray\u2019s intention to consider the possibility of waiving that full no-trade clause and the type of offseason that looms on the horizon for the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the deal,\u201d Gray last night said after noting that he and Bloom have spoken at length about the upcoming offseason. \u201cI know the direction. \u2026I came here to win. I signed here two years ago with the expectation of winning and trying to win, and that hasn\u2019t played out that way. I want to win. I want to win, and I expect to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on everything Gray said last night, there\u2019s a very real chance that yesterday\u2019s outing \u2014 six innings, two runs, seven hits, two walks, seven strikeouts \u2014 represents the final appearance of his Cardinals tenure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Cardinals embarked on a self-proclaimed youth movement that commenced last offseason, veterans like Sonny Gray, Willson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,24614,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-168372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sonny-gray","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}