THE SAY GRAY KID
Yanks raise the bar getting A’s ace for trio of prospects
Sonny Gray’s arrival in The Bronx didn’t just make the Yankees better, it shifted the balance of power in the AL East.
At least that’s what Dave Dombrowski said after Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline.
After GM Brian Cashman called the Red Sox “the Golden State Warriors of baseball” following their offseason trade for Chris Sale, Dombrowski, Boston’s president of baseball operations, returned the favor Monday.
“You mean the Golden State Warriors are you talking about?” Dombrowski said when asked about the Yankees trade for Gray in exchange for three minor leaguers. “I would have been surprised if they didn’t. But I think Brian has probably made them the Golden State Warriors and we’re the significant underdogs when I’m listening to the MLB Network.”
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but Cashman’s acquisitions in the last two weeks have certainly added to the Yankees’ confidence they can finish the regular season in first place.
“It’s a boost,” Brett Gardner said. “We’re a really good team. Any time you make a move to get better for the present and the future it’s exciting. We’ve got two important months coming up and a lot of baseball left to play, but I like where we’re at right now.”
The Yankees landed Gray about an hour before Monday’s 4 p.m. non-waiver trade deadline, according to Cashman. To get the right-hander, the Yankees sent three high-ceiling prospects to Oakland, but all carry some baggage.
Right-hander James Kaprielian is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, outfielder Dustin Fowler had surgery to repair an open rupture of the patellar tendon in his right knee that he suffered during his MLB debut on June 29, and Jorge Mateo was suspended by the organization for two weeks last season for a violation of team rules, but had blossomed since a recent promotion to Double-A Trenton.
“We lost three high-quality players that will be missed,” Cashman said. “And they’re hard to replace.”
In return, they got Gray, 27, who has dealt with injuries each of the past two years, but when healthy is an upgrade over much of the Yankees’ rotation.
“We improved it,” Cashman said of the rotation, which also added Jaime Garcia in a trade with Minnesota over the weekend. “We’ve given ourselves some depth. It was an area of weakness and it’s been shored up and addressed.”
Cashman said Garcia was acquired to join the rotation, which means rookie Jordan Montgomery is likely headed to either the bullpen or the minors.
Garcia and Gray will join Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia in the new-look rotation. And that’s after Cashman reshaped the bullpen by trading for David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle — in addition to Todd Frazier — from the White Sox on July 18.
The moves were met with approval from Sabathia.
“I am an older player and prospects are prospects and they won’t help our team win,” Sabathia said. “I love [Kaprielian] and he is a great kid and I am excited for them, but to get a guy like [Gray] is really good.’’
It’s a stark difference from a year ago, when the Yankees traded Andrew Mill- er, Aroldis Chapman and Carlos Beltran primarily for prospects prior to the deadline.
The Yankees have played well recently after an ugly stretch from mid-June to mid-July, although Cashman said the improved play did not have much of a role in these moves, calling it a “long” process with Oakland’s Billy Beane to get the deal done.
But the Yankees certainly seem better now than they did earlier in July.
Frazier disagreed with the notion the moves have added pressure on the Yankees to win.
“If we play like we’re supposed to play, like we’ve been doing, I think the pressure is gonna be on the other teams,” Frazier said. Now comes the real test. “We’re gonna find out,” Cashman said of whether the Yankees could win the division. “We’re in the sprint now, the last two months of the season. The marathon’s winding down and it’s time to sprint to the finish line. We’ve done everything we possibly can — to date — to continue to excel.”