Sonny Gray has made his feelings about his time with the New York Yankees crystal clear since being traded to the Boston Red Sox. And it’s not pretty.
The story depends on who you ask. Yankees GM Brian Cashman says Gray basically used the organization as leverage to protect his free agent value. Gray’s camp tells it differently.
Here’s what we know: Gray arrived in New York at the 2017 trade deadline talking up the Yankees. Sounded excited, said all the right things. But according to Cashman, it took a full year for Gray to admit he actually hated being there.
That’s a long time to keep quiet about being miserable.
The numbers tell their own story. Gray, who’d been an All-Star with Oakland, struggled badly in pinstripes. He went 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA over a season and a half in the Bronx. Not exactly what the Yankees had in mind when they acquired him.
Cashman opened up about a conversation he had with Gray around the 2018 trade deadline during the Winter Meetings. It’s revealing stuff.
“He said, ‘I thought you were going to trade me,” Cashman said. “I was like, publicly I’m out trying to get pitching, starting pitching and bullpen.
Why would I trade a starter when we need pitching badly?… And he goes, ‘Well I got to tell you, I’ve never wanted to’… that’s when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room.”
So Gray was apparently hiding out in hotel rooms while struggling on the mound. That explains a lot about how things went sideways.
Now that he’s wearing Red Sox colors, this adds another layer to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Gray’s got a chance to prove his struggles in New York weren’t about his ability – they were about the environment.
From where I’m sitting, that’s the kind of motivation that can make a pitcher dangerous. Especially when he’s facing his former team.
