Rockies starter Jon Gray is scheduled to hit free agency at the end of the season. With Colorado having virtually no chance to make the playoffs, that makes the 29-year-old one of the more logical trade candidates in baseball. Indeed, MLBTR’s Steve Adams ranked Gray the #1 trade candidate in the sport last week.
Gray changing teams next month still seems the most likely outcome, but Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports the Rockies are expected to offer him a contract extension before pulling the trigger on any trade. Of course, the club offering Gray an extension doesn’t guarantee he’d stick around. The Rockies don’t look particularly close to contention, and the CAA Sports client may prefer to field offers from more immediate contenders this winter instead.
As Rosenthal notes, Colorado’s hitter-friendly home park could also work against them in convincing a pitcher to voluntarily stick around for the long haul. Gray, though, is the rare arm who hasn’t seemed too affected by Coors Field. His career home/road splits are nearly identical, and Gray’s actually been far better at home this season (3.25 ERA, .167/.264/.314 opponents’ slash line) than on the road (6.75 ERA, .350/.400/.538 line).
Extensions for starting pitchers this close to free agency are atypical, as one might expect. Over the past four seasons, only two starters with five-plus years of MLB service time signed extensions. Righty Sonny Gray inked a three-year, $30.5MM guarantee with the Reds in 2019. That was part of an agreement to facilitate a trade from the Yankees to Cincinnati, though, so it’s not a perfectly analogous situation. Righty Lance McCullers Jr., meanwhile, signed a five-year, $85MM deal with the Astros in March. McCullers is nearly two full years younger than Jon Gray and has a better career track record (even after adjusting for park), so the Rockies hurler would have a hard time commanding that kind of commitment.
Gray’s contractual status makes his situation one of the more pressing for interim general manager Bill Schmidt. He’s not the only Colorado starter drawing attention from rival clubs, though. Rosenthal reports the Rockies are also receiving interest in starter Germán Márquez. That’s certainly no surprise. Márquez has worked to a 3.91 ERA in 71 1/3 frames this season- a strong mark for a pitcher in Coors Field- with quality strikeout and ground ball rates (24.7% and 52.7%, respectively). Márquez has walked quite a few batters this year (11.2%), but he was one of the game’s better strike throwers between 2017-20.
In addition to his strong track record of performance, Márquez is controllable through 2024 under the terms of an extension he signed in April 2019. He’s making just $7.5MM this year, followed by respective salaries of $11MM and $15MM in 2022 and 2023. The deal contains a $16MM club option (with a $2.5MM buyout) for 2024. Given that long-term control, the Rockies needn’t move Márquez this summer, and Rosenthal suggests they’re unlikely to do so.
Between Gray, Márquez and impending free agent shortstop Trevor Story (who doesn’t seem likely to re-sign), the Rockies have a trio of players who should continue to generate plenty of calls from contenders. There’s a particular sense of urgency with regards to Gray and Story, as the organization seeks the core of the next contending club in Colorado.
Memo to AA and the Braves, don’t do it !!
Based on the Arenado trade, I’d assume all it would take to get Marquez from the Rockies is a couple buckets of baseballs and an L-screen.
Marquez for Paddack?
How long will the Arenado trade have to be in the rear-view mirror before we stop getting ridiculous lowball offers for Rockies like this?
For Marquez, maybe start with Paddack plus the Padres best minor-league pitcher not named Gore.
I’d think Paddack alone could get you Gray and maybe a little more.
Yeah, there are a lot of people who don’t understand how much dead money was on that Arenado contract.
What dead money? With the Arenado trade the Rockies had a lot working against them but not dead money. The fact that he had a no trade clause, not a lot of teams looking for 3rd baseman, the rift was public so they lost leverage there plus others I’m sure I’m forgetting but none of the reasons is dead money. As part of the agreement the Cards added at least 1 new opt-out and another year and $15 mil, not many teams add money to contracts deemed to have dead money attached.
I think they’re talking about the possibility of the opt out he had in his contract. Arenado would have to be crazy to take the opt out IMO, but it was still a possibility as far as the trade is concerned
Roughly the amount of money that COL had to send with him to go to STL? Yeah, the Cards added a year, but they also have COL footing a decent portion of his overall contract.
Do you think Arenado would have gotten the same contract as a free agent that he got as an extension from COL?
Do you really think STL sent FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS as a thank you? Not because the contract was underwater?
Col paid for two entire seasons of Arenados salary with another team just to get rid of him
McCourt it was a yes or no question. Correct answer is no. 1984 is correct.
Gray has far less value than Paddack. His numbers are noticeably inferior and he has a half season of control while Paddack has a half season at league minimum and 3 years of arbitration.
The Padres would never do either trade anyway. If they make a trade it will be to add pitching depth and trading one ml pitcher for another doesn’t add any.
@ahh- Paddack and Nix? Paddack and Espinoza? I think Nix might get the deal done; Espinoza is still touch-and-go after 2 TJs. Morejon off the table with a fresh TJ.
Hahahahahahahahaha
You think that’s gonna be the price for a divisional rival too? Wow
No, merely the starting point on a sensible deal. COL would be wise to ask for Tucupita in addition but I’m not inclined to give them any ideas off the rip.
Marquez is kind of built for Coors. Good velo but low spin rates seem to work best in that altitude. I wonder how much other teams have taken note of that who are in need of starters (which is pretty much every contender).
Yeah he does fairly well there compared to others… of course his road stats have been upper tier and I’ve wanted him on Mets for a while but will never happen… 2018-21 he’s 3.19/1.01 4.13 k/bb on the road
The Cardinals need all of them!!!!
Come on Angels get it done. Then trade for some relievers
Stop and use the thinky part of your body for a moment.
The biggest need of the Rockies is always SP. No quality FA SP will sign with COL (except maybe with a severe overpay) because the conditions there destroy their numbers. The Rox need to get their SP through development and trade.
So why would the Angels trade ANY minors SP of decent quality and above for 2-3 months of Jon Gray? There are other organizations with depth in the minors in SP who can make an offer. The Angels are definitely not one of those teams.
The Angels are 5 games out of the WC. They are 6 games back in the division. Jon Grey is not getting a top 50 prospect in return. Angels could offer Hector Yan a 21 year old left handed starting pitcher, along with Jackson a 19 year old SS. They could throw in Jamie Barria, 24 with 3 years left after this season before he is a FA. So laugh all you want. Btw the Angels haven’t been fully healthy sines April. They are getting close to having their starting lineup back. But as always they need starting pitching.
Just to recap:
3 years of Barria
6 years of Yan
6 years of Jackson
For 2-3 months of a SP who famously falls apart at the end of the season.
Barria has known talent, Yan and Jackson are lotto tickets, but still have value for someone other than Jon Gray.
Would another trade with the cards work? Maybe dejong, rondon, helsley, Thompson, gorman, for gray and Marquez? Maybe work out an extension for gray? A pending free agent and Marquez who has a couple years left for 3 of our top 8 prospects plus affordable short stop with years left to replace story and a hard throwing bullpen piece? Maybe throw in something else to get story? Make it a mega trade, maybe extend story and gray. Cards have the pieces to make it work
buyer beware on Gray. his arm always fatigues at some point during the year.
Regardless of what the Rockies do, they will somehow screw it up.
I’m confused by the analysis of fans. They’ll blame the coor’s affect for the production of rockies hitter, but it never get mentioned for the pitchers. Has anyone else noticed that when a pitcher leave the rockies… they instantly get 10x better?
I don’t know what community you usually follow for baseball but it’s definitely widely talked about.
Based on their track record on trades I am not expecting much. Two problems with this organization is a poor draft record and an ever worse trade record. When you are a mid market team that usually spells basement most of the time……..and if not for the hapless D-backs they would be there! So of course there will be a once in a generation player in next years draft and the Rocks will pick 2nd, or 3rd. Since the Cubbies finally won a WS is there a more hardluck team that the Rockies? Still they are my team and it can’t get worse than this………can it????????? Please lie if you disagree, help a poor Rockies fan out will ya!