One of the earliest trade rumors this offseason was that the Cincinnati Reds were interested in New York Yankees starting pitcher Sonny Gray. There were reasons that it made sense. The first being that the Reds were in desperate need of starting pitching for 2019. Gray had a down year in 2018, but was fine away from Yankee Stadium, and has been quite good in the past. He also has a history with new pitching coach Derek Johnson, who coached him at Vanderbilt. Then of course was the fact that the Yankees need a middle infielder, and Scooter Gennett seemed like a good option for them. Things just matched up.
But apparently they didn’t match up well because it’s now December 28th and the teams haven’t made a trade. Jon Morosi notes that there’s still interest out there for Sonny Gray, but not so much from the Reds at this point.
Source: #Brewers remain prominent in Sonny Gray talks with #Yankees. #Reds were involved earlier this offseason but have faded somewhat due to additions of Wood and Roark. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 28, 2018
The reasoning isn’t surprising at this point. The Reds have acquired starting pitching already. And they keep stating that they want to get one more guy – and it’s a guy who can be in front of the two that they already acquired. While that guy could be Sonny Gray, it’s not likely that he’s going to be better than Alex Wood based on what we do expect from everyone involved. Cincinnati’s front office is shooting higher than the Sonny Gray’s of the world right now. They are looking for someone safe to be a high-end starter, not someone who projects to be a back-end starter with upside.
Perhaps their plan of going out and getting someone to head their rotation doesn’t work. If so, maybe they will re-enter the conversation with the Yankees about Sonny Gray. For now though, it seems that they’ve moved on to try and find another option.