Jon Gray rejected an extension offer the Rockies made him before the end of the regular season, reports Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Gray continues to have interest in sticking with Colorado long-term, Saunders adds, although the expectation is now that he’ll at least test the open market.
There’s been reported mutual interest between the Rox and Gray in a long-term deal for months, but the sides have yet to line up on acceptable terms. Saunders suggests the right-hander could target a three or four-year deal with an average annual value in the $9-10MM range on the open market. Whether that kind of deal would be attainable could depend upon whether the Rockies tag Gray with a qualifying offer. Doing so would entitle the Rockies to draft pick compensation were he to sign elsewhere, although he’d be a strong candidate to accept an $18.4MM offer to return in 2022.
Perhaps that’d be a mutually agreeable outcome, since Colorado clearly has interest in retaining Gray. Despite already being out of postseason contention by late July, the Rockies seemingly made Gray unavailable relatively early on trade deadline day. That course of action makes little sense unless the team wants to keep him around, and subsequent reports made clear that’s the case.
Gray bounced back from an injury-plagued 2020 to post a solid season this year. Over 149 innings, the 29-year-old worked to a 4.59 ERA with average or better strikeout (24.4%), walk (9%) and ground-ball (48.4%) rates. He thrived at Coors Field, tossing 78 1/3 frames of 4.02 ERA ball while holding opponents to a .205/.291/.365 line in home starts. With how difficult it has proven for the Rockies to find pitchers capable of succeeding in the game’s most hitter-friendly environment, it’s easy to see why general manager Bill Schmidt and his staff have continually expressed interest in keeping Gray around.
Saunders adds some additional context on Colorado’s offseason priorities, writing that the club is expected to target “at least two impactful players.” What constitutes an impact addition is open to interpretation, but Saunders suggests the club will look for a power-hitting bat this winter, preferably an outfielder. He floats Nick Castellanos (almost certain to opt out of his contract with the Reds), Michael Conforto and utilityman Chris Taylor as possible targets.
That’s a varied collection of potential players of interest. Castellanos looks like a candidate for a nine-figure deal. Taylor has a strong case for a four-year contract in the $65+MM range. Conforto could land three or four years himself, but it’s also possible he looks for a one-year bounceback deal after a mediocre 2021 campaign. Signing any of that group would probably cost the Rockies a draft choice, as they’re all likely qualifying offer recipients.
As for other areas of need for the Rockies, Saunders floats the bullpen and middle infield. Shortstop Trevor Story is expected to reject a QO and sign elsewhere, leaving a middle infield vacancy. Former top prospect Brendan Rodgers has seemingly locked down one spot after hitting .284/.328/.470 across 415 plate appearances this past season. Rodgers is capable of manning either of shortstop or second base, leaving some flexibility for Schmidt and company in addressing the dirt.
Plugging all those position player gaps and/or retaining Gray would certainly make for a costly winter. Earlier this month, Colorado president Greg Feasel said the club was planning to increase payroll over the course of the next two offseasons — eventually pushing from 2021’s $118MM figure closer to their franchise-record $145MM mark from 2019. Colorado should indeed have spending room to work with, as Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates they have around $79MM in 2022 commitments at the moment — including projected arbitration salaries.
That financial flexibility should give the front office real room for upgrades, but they’ll have a tall task in constructing a contender. The Rockies have finished in fourth place in the NL West in each of the past three seasons, and the impending departure of Story only makes a return to contention in that loaded division harder. Despite those challenges, Saunders’ report reinforces that the Rockies aren’t planning to take a step back this winter. They’re at least plotting a hopeful win-now course of action that could see them remain in the market for some of the offseason’s top free agent hitters.
Bye bye Jonny Boy!
I wonder if most fans are smart enough to know it’s tougher to build a sustainable competitive team in Colorado?
No we are all dumb dweebs out here. ⚾️
Given the “owner is too cheap” I read all the time I tend to agree. Rockies absolutely fleeced the cardinals by the way.
Can’t blame him pitching in Colorado appears to be career destroying
My first time in Denver was his ML debut. Looks like he’s leaving.
With the shortage of starting pitching available he’ll do better than $9-10 million per year.
Exactly. Way better.
excuse me, SHORTAGE? how is there a shortage of pitching available this offseason?
Because there was during the season?
There’s a shortage of QUALITY pitching. After the aces/aceish tier (Scherzer, Syndergaard, Verlander, Stroman, Gausman, etc.), there’s a huge drop-off in talent. Gray isn’t as amazing like the others have been, but a lot of the underlying numbers suggest he’s better than people expect, largely because pitching in coors is tough. Also is just under 30 right now, and that’s another point in his favor because he’s entering the market already much younger than some of his counterparts. I can see a team giving him 4+ years.
Syndergaard is far from an ace or even close to it he’s a total question mark. He was up and down before the surgery.
Syndergaard may very well end up a reliever.
Not only that, but his list has two guys who were injured this year (Thor and Verlander) as well as a guy (Gausman) with literally one season of ‘ace’ level performance out of his nine in the league.
I got a feeling he signs with a hometown team. Kansas City or St Louis.
I get a feeling he signs with the highest bidder
Big if true.
He’s from Oklahoma…?
Yep hes from 20 minutes down the road from me. I remember when he was coming up, talk of the town. There aren’t too many Okies out there so we know them all haha
I’m trying to figure out how that makes a team in Missouri a “hometown” team.
Okies are St. Louis or Texas Rangers fans. No pro teams here.
What are the Rockies doing? Lowball your own pitcher, then target a potential bat in free agency? Yeah, that’ll help ya.
Why would anyone sign there with Monfort owning the team.
Because living in CO is 10x better than most places in the US, even with blue trying to destroy it
red*
fixed it for you.
maybe red states should learn to survive on their own instead of mooching off blue states.
The hardline red and blue voters are both equally stupid imo. They waste too much time and breaths slinging mud at each other, meanwhile nothing really gets done.
they’re all in it together to keep the public divided. behind closed doors there are no party lines, just dirty politicians lining their pockets while we argue false issues. pickle party will prevail!
Red states have a net out flow of money to the federal govt. Blue states have a net inflow of cash from the federal govt. This is a fact.
Stpbaseball: Absolutely, 100% correct. Keep America occupied arguing over divisive, emotionally charged topics while they keep expanding power / royalty status.
Hot Corner: It is blatantly obvious he doesn’t pay attention to the fiscal policies, budget, and debt of Ca, NY, Mi, etc, etc. Red typically want less federal govt and rely on their intrastate business to support itself. Look at NY or CA (which is in fiscal ruins) as compared to Fla.
Hot Corner IJ-
If you actually believe that I feel sorry for you.
Yankee Clipper-
Not true. Many of the red states like to talk about wanting less government, but their actions say otherwise. Look at what Ted Cruz says about federal disaster aid in general, and then look what he says when there’s a natural disaster in Texas. That’s the prevailing mindset in nutshell.
Just a personal observation, but anytime anyone says the phrase, “this is a fact,” I tend to not put much credence into that statement. Something can be a fact and still be completely misleading, a logical fallacy or even just a plain lie.
HotCorner: provide a cite to support your alleged “fact.” (And a tweet from a QAnon-spouting nutjob doesn’t qualify.)
California’s debt level suggests otherwise.
Let me translate for you what Ted is actually saying during natural disasters in Texas. Goes more or less like this:
“Vote for me, vote for me, I’m on TV, vote for me, vote for me, I’m on TV, with this poor family that lost their house, toss in a promise I can’t keep. Vote for me!”
Let’s Go Brandon!!
LOL
Yankee Clipper you are full of it. CA had over 75 billion dollar surplus.
“California expects a staggering $75.7 billion surplus despite a year of pandemic closures — an amount that surpasses most states’ annual spending and prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday to propose sending cash back to residents as he faces a recall election.”
Get real.
mfm4200: If you blue-staters have it so good, you wouldn’t get much of an argument from we red-staters who’d be just fine with all of you starting your own country.
Note: With your high taxes, long lists of freebies, out of control crime rates and tree hugging governors and mayors, you’d go belly-up in less than five years.
I watch a lot of games on MLB.TV each season. Usually wind up following around 8 teams through most of the year. Watching them play opponents I get to see most MLB teams play.
However, there are some teams I just won’t watch much of even if one of my favorite teams is playing them. The Rockies are one – although I did watch Gray pitch a few innings last year due to the hubub about him here on MLBTR. He struck me as OK, but nothing special (example – the Rays have 3-4 young starters that I thought threw better than Gray). As I was writing this post I looked up which teams I avoided this past season along with the Rockies – the Rangers, DBacks, Cubs, Marlins after the first 6 weeks, Twins, and Orioles
All have some decent players (love watching Cedric Mullins of the Orioles) but I’m not going to watch a team play to see one or two players. Surprisingly, I got interested in the Pirates this year – I know it’s early in their rebuild, but Cherington has already brought in some very good young players and the team attempts to play fundamental baseball (some of the players are just not that good). I think the Pirates and Orioles are doing the right things and have a chance to build quality organizations that will produce in the next few years.
Back to the Rockies – like the Rangers I’ve had no idea what they’ve been trying to do over the past 3-4 years. They’re rebuilding, they’re not rebuilding. It doesn’t seem like they’re putting together teams to take advantage of their home parks. They have no style of play. I don’t know if they’re emphasizing pitching, defense, or playing large ball or small ball on offense. It’s just a hogepoge of players – young, old – whatever they can get. As if they’re throwing stuff up against the wall and hoping something sticks. Established teams do that as well – Yankees and Cardinals come to mind. But the Rockies and Rangers seem to be stuck in first gear.
I wonder if Chaim Bloom takes a chance on him. Bloom loves guys who have high strikeout rates.
Through the underlying stats, he’s actually quite solid. Strikes out more than a batter per inning and keeps the walks and homers at a reasonable level despite pitching at a higher altitude than everyone else. I think getting out of coors will revitalize his career in a big way. He’s got that mid-90s heater and a good slider. Gets lots of whiffs with that 2 pitch mix already. What’s holding him back is the lack of an effective third pitch. His change-up and curve are occasional “show-me” pitches he rarely uses. Probably because they don’t do well in coors to begin with. Either way, I’d love it if the Mariners signed him, and 9-10M AAV is a relative bargain in this winter’s market.
I rarely would advice a team to tank but in this case I don’t understand why the rockies don’t go into a full tank mode.
This is the situation:
-colorado has a worse mlb roster than the dodgers, giants and padres
-Colorado has a worse farm system than the dodgers, giants and maybe padres too (debatable)
-Colorado has less money than the giants and dodgers
By what way do the rockies plan to overtake two out of that 3 teams in the next 2 years? Certainly not outapending SF and LA and even the Padres have more mlb talent and at least similar milb talent.
Analytics and player dev are also inferior to at least sf and LA, so really tanking is the only way to get up to speed again.
The reasons you gave is why they shouldn’t tank. Until they can develop players and fix the FO, tanking is the last thing they should do.
They should definitely use the next few years to develop and promote. Not sure why they would want Gray back honestly.
So if they tank for 4-5 years, are the Giants and Dodgers going to have less money then? No, but Rockies will have wasted 4-5 years on a silly hope that the grass might be greener on the other side.
BTW, they only finished 4.5 games behind the vaunted Padres this year. Talent means nothing if you can’t use it to win.
Curious, who is the best pitcher to pitch in colorado? Rockie or opposition? Are the great pitchers mediocre in colorado? Kershaw? Scherzer’s?
He wins the MVP and the super bowl if he signs with the Muppets!!! Otherwise he is garbage.
What kind of person calls other human beings garbage?
Imagine how good Gray, Freeland, Marquez, and Senzatela would be with a change of scenery. Might as well add Gomber to that mix now as well.
Freeland is a Denver kid. i think his pitching style is best suited for COL.
Maybe but I’d be curious to see how he’d fair on another team. I know he’s struggled some but he’s still fairly young and could benefit from a change. You’re right though, he may prefer pitching there.
So your answer is just for no one to pitch for the Rockies? Should we just find a good pitching machine and hope no one tries to steal bases?
I could see AJ Preller kicking the tires on Gray.2021 proved you can never have enough SP depth.The Padres thought they were 7 deep,and they were,but even that wasn’t enough.
Of course,Preller kicks the tires on everyone so…..
Yeah if having to start Arrieta didn’t drive that point home, nothing will.
Colorado wants to sign big free agents and say they have money to spend but they trade their third baseman last year and eat 59 mill of it to do so.. what idiots.. if he opted out instead which he never would have done due to his contract they would have had additional money to spend.. what a joke of a front office
Angels will make an offer that will land him. He had backwards splits – was better at home than on the road. Reality is this will probably end up being another of a long string of disappointments for the Halos.
If he signs with the Angels, you better get that guy who gives blessings for a speedy recovery up in the pen.
For 4/40 the Angels should take him. Quintana got $8 million this year to be horrible. That’s nearly cash flow neutral and a big upgrade.
Angels and Rox are the two worst run franchise in all of MLB. One team (Angels) spends and spends and gets nowhere. The other (Rox) could have a zillion dollars to spend and they’d still find a way to eff it up. That, and what solid FA pitcher would come to Coors if he could get the same, or almost the same, cheese elsewhere.
Of course, there might be another Mike Hampton lurking about out there who would come to Coors for a paltry $150 million because the schools are good and the air is clean!!!!!!
The delusional optimism of the Rockies owner/front office is always entertaining. Is there a worse sports (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, MLS) franchise out there?
Jon Gray will be coming to Giants…..financially and performance wise would be a smart move for him.
If the thought process is he will be looking for a deal in the $9-$10 million per year range and he rejected the Rockies offer it means either the years weren’t enough or the money, or both. I definitely would not offer a qualifying offer unless they are ok with him accepting it.
Next Angels “big” pitcher they bring in, overpriced and outbid themselves for
If he fully tests the FA market I will be surprised if he gets less than 4/$50M. Pitching half your games in Colorado really skews the numbers and must get into a pitcher’s head. I think Gray could be a solid 13-15 game winner on a half decent team.
When Gray becomes a FA there will be no shortage of suitors. Someone mentioned the Cardinals as a possible landing spot. Don’t know if St. Louis needs him (They have some pretty good young SP already on the roster and one or two knocking on the door.). But no matter where Gray ends up, he’ll be better off (Numbers wise, i.e.) than if he re-upped with the Rox.
Gotta face the facts, pitching at Coors is a nightmare for 95% of pitchers. It ain’t a go-to destination.