The Athletics’ promising stable of starters could make right-hander Sonny Gray expendable this year, posits FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link). Major leaguers Kendall Graveman, Jharel Cotton, Sean Manaea and Andrew Triggs all look like viable building blocks, while prospects Grant Holmes and last year’s sixth overall pick, A.J. Puk, are among potential future starters within the organization. Gray endured a nightmarish 2016 and is currently on the mend from a lat strain, so his stock surely isn’t where it was when he performed like an ace from 2013-15. Still, Gray’s fairly young (27), affordable ($3.575MM) and controllable via arbitration through the 2019 campaign. If Oakland does place Gray on the block, it could seek outfield help in return, Rosenthal says.
Here’s more from the AL West:
- The Rangers aren’t inclined to trade corner infielder/outfielder Joey Gallo, whom they view as an important long-term piece, according to Rosenthal. The powerful Gallo has been strong at third base this year in place of the injured Adrian Beltre, who’s 38 and only signed through next season. Even if Gallo exits the lineup when Beltre returns, the 23-year-old could become an everyday player at first base or in the outfield by next season, Rosenthal notes. At that point, free agents-to-be Mike Napoli and Carlos Gomez might be in other uniforms, thus creating room for Gallo. The former big-time prospect has slashed a productive .235/.350/.529 in 40 PAs this year, and while he’s still striking out too much, his 35 percent K rate is a vast improvement over the unsightly 63.3 percent mark he put up in 30 PAs last season.
- The Astros faced a scary situation in Oakland on Saturday when shortstop Carlos Correa left early after taking a 96 mph fastball from Frankie Montas to the left hand. Fortunately for the Astros and Correa, X-rays only revealed a contusion. “Good news, obviously,” Correa told Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. “I thought it was going to be a lot worse. Obviously, it was a hard-throwing guy and it was a fastball inside. He didn’t give me a chance to get out of the way and I got hit in the hand. Thank God no fracture.” Correa, who’s day-to-day, hopes to return to Houston’s lineup Sunday.
- Athletics shortstop Marcus Semien has a bone contusion in his right wrist and will undergo an MRI on Monday, tweets Joe Stiglich of NBC Sports California. Semien’s wrist has been an issue since late in the spring, adds Stiglich, and that could at least partially explain his early season power outage. After swatting 27 long balls and posting a .197 ISO last season, Semien has gone homer-less and managed a paltry .057 ISO in 46 plate trips this year.
- Rangers reliever Keone Kela, demoted to Triple-A on March 31 as a disciplinary measure, is a candidate to rejoin Texas’ bullpen next time the team needs help from the minors, writes Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Kela’s never not been an option,” said manager Jeff Banister. “They’ve all been possibilities. It just depends on what you need.” The 23-year-old Kela was excellent as a rookie in 2015, but he took significant steps backward last season and then earned a ticket to Triple-A by showing a lack of effort in a minor league intrasquad game this spring.
Let the Gray-Braves rumors begin. Please don’t part with Acuna Matatah.
Who will they trade then? Braves seem to be stacked with pitchers, and the A’s don’t need pitchers.
That’s the perception but 4 of the top 10 (5 of top 12) are position players including the top 2 and the fastest moving is Ronald Acuna (lame reference in previous post). Travis Demeritte should also be moving up.
from 2013-2015 sonny gray was the 35th most valuable pitcher by fWAR, or an average of 2.77 fWAR per season and was 20th in RA-9 WAR. If that’s Ace-like performance then that’s a very loose definition of the term.
He didn’t even have half a season in 2013, so including that as a starting point seems strange especially because you can see that his effectiveness was down on a per inning basis in 2014 and 2015.
His “aceness” has always been quite over rated.
if you look at just 2014 and 15, when he pitched full seasons he was 26th by fWAR and 12th by RA-9 (very likely helped out by playing half his games at O.CO)
The term ace seems to get tossed around quite freely.
Ace just means the best pitcher on your team, which he was at the time. Nothing more, nothing less. Naturally some #1 guys are going to be better than other #1 guys.
That is not really what pitching like an Ace means in common usage at this point. Ace has become a term to refer to the best pitchers in baseball. Especially in the sense where it is stated that he was pitching like an ace. Which suggests there is a certain quality to it, as opposed to it just being stated that he was his team’s ace.
We hear about a team having multiple aces, see the mets, which would be entirely impossible if we were to go with the definition of the term which you are proposing.
So either that definition is wrong for current usage, or everyone who ever claims that a team has more than one ace is wrong.
Add to that that he also wasn’t the clear cut best pitcher on his team in 2013 or 2014 and it further disproves your definition of the term. Not sure how you’re getting to “Nothing more, nothing less.” unless you are just ignoring your own qualifications for the word.
Naw man, what I said was correct, not you.
You can’t pitch “like an ace”then, it would have to be like *his team’s ace* because there would be no such thing as pitching “like an ace” because it is completely context driven, man.
Simply saying “this is the dictionary definition”, while ignoring the context the word is used in and the evolution of the term in common parlance does not make what you said “right”. Language is fluid and it evolves much faster than is documented in dictionaries.
And again, you are just ignoring that he wasn’t the best for 2013 or arguably 2014.
Ace is just a opinion of the writer just like those who say he is not a Ace. You can cherry pick any stat but Gray was a Ace in 2014 and 2015. Will he be again is the question. I can name almost any pitcher that is called a Ace and cherry pick their stats like comments here to prove they are not a Ace.
I agree but I think there’s really only 6-7 real aces in the game. Having him as your number 1 is fine. Until last year his fip and ERA was consistently good and I think WAR doesn’t paint the whole picture for pitchers like it does for position players.
WAR in my example is comparing pitchers vs. pitchers. Would you like to further explain why you think it is failing to paint the whole picture? What stats would you like to use? You mentioned ERA and FIP.
From 2013-2015 he was 7th in era, but 23rd in fip, and 24th by xfip.
He does have a good ground ball %, so I’ll buy that he is a pretty decent contact manager, But from 2013-2016 he was running the 5th best babip in baseball. If you think he can keep doing that, I can understand seeing him as one of the better pitchers in the game. I think part of being an ace though is consistently performing at those levels.
In 2016 we saw what happened when he has a more normal babip against though. He had similar k/bb/and gb% in 2016, but his xfip was still .4 points higher.
I think that Sonny Gray was a good pitcher and lots of teams would have been happy to have him, I just don’t think he was an “ace”. I mean, is Kyle Hendricks an ace then?
I would take Sonny Gray in a Reds uniform with a quickness.
I know this will upset some of my fellow Orioles fans, but I’d be glad to trade Mancini for Gray.
Why would that upset any, that wouldn’t even be enough
A’s do not need a 1b prospect since they have Healy. Mancini would never be enough for a starter. The A’s biggest need is outfield or a hitting defensive SS.
Speaking of Montas, you can add him to that list of promising starters for the future A’s