«I don’t know what they’re thinking exactly \u2014 but it was an interesting choice to me.»<\/b>
\n«I don’t know what they’re thinking exactly \u2014 but it was an interesting choice to me.»
Craig Breslow and the Red Sox\u2019 top brass got a head start to a busy offseason on Tuesday \u2014 striking a deal with the Cardinals that landed veteran starter Sonny Gray.
Boston dealt a pair of younger pitchers in Richard Fitts and Brandon Clarke to pry Gray \u2014 a three-time All-Star \u2014 out of St. Louis, with the Cardinals also handing Boston $20 million in the deal to offset some of Gray\u2019s reworked salary for the 2026 season.
Gray should be a useful arm in Boston\u2019s starting rotation this summer. But is Gray a legitimate No. 2 option behind Garrett Crochet, and did the Red Sox give up too much for a 36-year-old pitcher?
Here\u2019s what several baseball experts are saying about Breslow\u2019s latest move.ESPNGrade: B+
ESPN\u2019s David Schoenfield noted in his grading of the Red Sox\u2019s deal that Boston didn\u2019t exactly plunder its own farm system in order to get a solid arm like Gray out of St. Louis.
\u201cFitts could be a bottom-of-the-rotation guy, and given the holes in the St. Louis rotation, is almost certain to get that opportunity,\u201d Schoenfield wrote. \u201cHis four-seam fastball, sitting 95-96, was an effective pitch in the 10 starts he made for the Red Sox in 2025, but he hasn\u2019t really developed a trustworthy secondary offering.
\u201cESPN\u2019s Kiley McDaniel rated [Clarke] the No. 9 prospect in the Boston system in August and while there\u2019s obvious upside if everything comes together, he\u2019s not close to the majors and the profile screams reliever risk,\u201d Schoenfield added.
As for Gray, Schoenfield noted that Gray has plus stuff on the mound after leading all National League starters in strikeout-to-walk ratio \u2014 while ranking fourth in the majors among starters with a nearly 52 percent strikeout rate and holding opponents to a .135 average when getting two strikes on them.
But Schoenfeld added that Gray\u2019s fastball was often hit hard last season \u2014 with opponents batting .370 and slugging .585 against his four-seamer.
\u201cCan that be fixed? With a fastball that averages 92 mph, maybe not,\u201d Schoenfield added. \u201cGray did throw his three fastball variants 53% of the time, so maybe the Red Sox suggest a different pitch mix \u2014 the four-seamer, while it gives him the one pitch Gray throws up in the zone, has been hammered two years in a row now, but was still the pitch he threw most often in 2025.
\u201cOverall, Gray plugs a big hole without the Red Sox paying out a long-term contract \u2014 and the Red Sox didn\u2019t give up anybody who projected to be an impact player for them in 2026 (such as starters Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who debuted this past season and could be in the 2026 rotation).\u201dCBSGrade: A
CBS Sports\u2019 R.J. Anderson gave Boston high marks \u2014 noting that the Red Sox managed to avoid taking on the entirety of Gray\u2019s altered contract that will essentially pay him $41 million in 2026.
\u201cHere, the Red Sox not only leveraged their pitching depth to land another quality starter, they did it while creatively maintaining financial flexibility that should come in handy throughout the winter,\u201d Anderson wrote.
\u201cGray, 36, might be the most underrated pitcher of his generation. Across parts of 13 seasons, he\u2019s amassed a 117 ERA+, a 3.10 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and more than 33 Wins Above Replacement,\u201d Anderson added. \u201cHe\u2019s logged at least 150 innings in each of the past three seasons, and last year\u2019s inflated ERA shouldn\u2019t cause too much concern. If you compare his metrics on a year-to-year basis, he saw improvements in 2025 in both his average exit velocity and his walk rate (and therefore his strikeout-to-walk ratio).\u201d
Even if Boston isn\u2019t exactly on the hook for Gray\u2019s entire contract, Boston is still closing in on the first threshold of the competitive balance tax after taking on over $20 million of Gray\u2019s deal.The AthleticGrade: A-
Chad Jennings of The Athletic also believed that targeting Gray \u2014 even if he ends up serving as just a rental \u2014 was the right move for a Red Sox team that is looking to capitalize on this current contention window.
\u201cThese two teams are in remarkably different places, trying to do remarkably different things,\u201d Jennings wrote. \u201cThat\u2019s why the deal works so well for each side. The Red Sox are ready to win, and among their most glaring short-term needs \u2014 a problem that already hurt them in the playoffs this season \u2014 was a No. 2 starter behind Garrett Crochet.
\u201cGray fills that void, offering experience and strikeouts without issuing a ton of walks. He\u2019s a rental, and not especially cheap even with the Cardinals covering roughly half of his salary, but he fits the moment, and positions the Red Sox as a team committed to winning. Unlike in the previous season, they had some young pitching depth that they could afford to trade.\u201dUSA TodayGrade: B
USA Today\u2019s Charles Curtis believed both the Red Sox and Cardinals benefitted from this trade, with Boston acquiring a strong arm in its rotation and St. Louis accepting an inevitable retooling by moving Gray for future assets.
\u201cThis one is fairly straightforward: Gray is aging, but he\u2019s still a solid veteran starter who has won 27 games over the past two seasons and who can still has the potential to be a sub-4.00 ERA pitcher,\u201d Curtis wrote. \u201cHe\u2019ll eat up some innings, too. They didn\u2019t break the bank and got an upgrade in the rotation. Seems solid, if unspectacular. Plus, the Cardinals are paying some money for Gray, which helps!\u201dKen Rosenthal
While the longtime baseball scribe didn\u2019t hand out a grade following Tuesday\u2019s trade, he did question whether or not the Red Sox extracted top value in this swap \u2014 especially if Gray stands as more of an upgrade over Lucas Giolito than a legitimate No. 2 option behind Crochet.
\u201cMy expectation from the Red Sox was that they were going to go to a guy they believed would slot in with some certainty as a number two starter in a postseason series behind Garrett Crochet,\u201d Rosenthal said on \u201cFoul Territory. \u201cI\u2019m not sure Sonny Gray at 36 years old, is that anymore \u2026 I thought the Cardinals did well.
\u201cI\u2019m not sure the Red Sox did well enough, but maybe they see this differently. Maybe they say, \u2018You know what? \u2018We\u2019re not doing $150 million [for] Dylan Cease, or Framber Valdez or Ranger Suarez or [Tatsuya] Imai. \u201cNo, let\u2019s do one year with Sonny Gray.\u2019 Do some other things to upgrade offensively. Maybe get another lesser starter as well. I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re thinking exactly \u2014 but it was an interesting choice to me, the one that they made.\u201d<\/p>\n