PAIN IN THE A'S
Yankees will have to suffer if they want Sonny Gray
THIS was 15 years ago, perhaps 20. I know it was so far back the conversation took place on a landline phone (ask your parents).
As I am wont to do in my pretend universe as the 31st general manager, I was proposing a trade concept to one of the actual 30 GMs kind enough to indulge me. Oakland’s Billy Beane patiently listened to my Yankees-Athletics suggestion and then said:
“You just offered me three pieces of crap for my really good player,” except Billy didn’t use the word “crap.” So I suggested one more Yankees prospect be included and an exasperated Beane said, “Now, you just gave me another piece of crap and crap plus crap just equals more crap.” But, again, Billy didn’t use the word “crap.”
He then volunteered a lesson that has stuck with me since — all the way to now, when I bother baseball officials with trade proposals via text, not landline: “If it hurts me to trade the player, it has to hurt you equally to acquire him. Our pain should be shared.”
That has informed me ever since, when I throw out a trade concept. I generally feel comfortable when fans of the selling team complain on Twitter that I am an idiot for giving their team too little while fans of the buying team lambaste me for being a moron giving up too much.
So mutual “pain” should be remembered this weekend as the Yankees are among the teams circling Beane’s Athletics for Sonny Gray. Beane has set a painful price. The Yankees will not get Gray for Bryan Mitchell and Ronald Torreyes. Beane, now Oakland’s vice president of baseball operations, drafted Gray, developed him, lived through his physical and performance ups and downs, and now that he is pitching well at age 27, it is going to hurt Beane to let him go. So it is going to hurt an acquiring team to land him.
The Yankees insist the pain will not include Clint Frazier or Gleyber Torres, whom they refused to include in their bids for Jose Quintana, whom they liked better than Gray because he is a lefty, had one more year of control and had a longer track record of sturdiness and consistent high-end performance.
To get this done likely is going to take four prospects, and I simply do not see how it does not include Estevan Florial or Jorge Mateo as a main component, plus someone such as Domingo Acevedo or the rising prospect Freicer Perez and two other attractive pieces with high ceilings.
Will the Yankees blink and take on enough pain? Remember that Beane and Brian Cashman have not found equilibrium in pain to make a meaningful trade in 15 years.
However, Gray fits what the Yankees desire, and not just in 2017. He is controlled through 2019, and the Yankees have worries about their future rotations with CC Sabathia and Masahiro Tanaka both potentially free agents. Plus, Gray works in the Yankees’ quest to get under the $197 million luxury threshold in 2018. Through the arbitration process, Gray would make roughly $7 million next year.
A future rotation built around Gray, Luis Severino, Jordan Montgomery and Tanaka — if he does not opt out — with options such as Chance Adams, perhaps Acevedo, eventually James Kaprielian, etc., gives the Yankees a stronger base.
If Gray gets traded elsewhere or the Yankees find the price for him too high, then where do they go? They will monitor Yu Darvish. But I get the feeling to move the righty, the Rangers will establish a prospect price the Yankees cannot tolerate for a rental (Darvish will be a free agent after the season). Because he is in his walk year, Darvish would more fit a team comfortably ahead in its division that knows it is in the playoffs, which is the Nationals, Astros and Dodgers. Of that group, the Dodgers are viewed as the strongest contender for Darvish.
The Yankees then would consider a walk-year starter such as the Twins’ Jaime Garcia, the Cardinals’ Lance Lynn or the Blue Jays’ Marco Estrada as someone who could cost less in prospects and allow them to improve on a Caleb Smith/Luis Cessa type.
Also, I sense the Yankees still are thinking about a first baseman who would turn Chase Headley into a backup at both infield corners. They talked briefly with the Mets about Lucas Duda, but were offering the same level of reliever the Mets received from the Rays (Drew Smith), and therefore, the Mets preferred not to send Duda crosstown.
The Yankees don’t seem overly excited about Yonder Alonso from Oakland, with or without Gray.
For now, though, the main focus is Gray, with the question being: How much pain are the Yankees willing to endure to make it happen?