Houston Astros Rumors: Why Sonny Gray is the perfect buy-low candidate

The Yankees appear ready to move on from the Sonny Gray experiment. Here’s why the Houston Astros should buy-low on Gray and acquire him in a trade.

We have discussed extensively the need for starting pitching on this Houston Astros team. Dallas Keuchel has declined his qualifying offer, meaning he’ll hit the open market and likely go to the highest bidder. Charlie Morton is also a free agent and will have no lack of suitors. Finally, Lance McCullers just had Tommy John surgery so he’s out next year as well.

The Astros pitching staff was incredible in 2018 and was the biggest strength on this team. Justin Verlander had an MVP-caliber season and finished in second for the award. Gerrit Cole had a wonderful season in his first as an Astro. These two guys performances combined with those of Keuchel, Morton, and McCullers made for a potent pitching staff.

If the team desires to keep up this strength from 2018 to 2019, they’ll have to replace up to three guys who can pitch at the same level. This is a tall task to do and it’ll take creativity and likely a combination of guys from free agency and the trade market as well as internal options.

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The free agent market isn’t particularly impressive but the lack of elite arms around the league will likely drive up the cost even if the talent doesn’t match the price tag. The internal options are decent but largely unproven. The trade market is hard to gauge because it’s difficult to tell who teams actually want to sell.

That being said, the Yankees have publically placed Sonny Gray on the trade block. Gray had a miserable year in his first full year as a Yankee. He posted a 4.90 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP on only 130 innings. He just simply wasn’t supposed to be a Yankee has his production plummeted after they acquired him in 2017.

So, it makes sense that the Yankees would want to get rid of him and that he would want out of New York. After all, Gray is not too far removed from ace status. However, injuries seemed to rob him of some of that potential in 2016 and he had a very down year. He began to reclaim his ace status until 2017 until he was traded to the Bronx.

Gray’s career definitely has some Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde to it but there are a couple things that could point to the downs compared to the ups. One of the things that happen this past year is Gray completely redid his pitching repertoire and shifted how often he threw pitches and even added new pitches.

Gray just hasn’t been a fit in the Big Apple. He hasn’t held up well under the spotlight and scrutiny of the New York media. He thrived and excelled in a smaller market and Oakland and could continue to do so in a smaller market than New York.

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Coming to Houston should be an ideal situation for Gray. Brett Strom is a pitching wizard and has reworked harder reclamation stories. The expectations are high in Houston after two phenomenal seasons but the thing is, in Houston, Gray won’t be expected to be “the guy.” The Astros already have two of “the guy”s in Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole.

All Gray has to do in Houston is come in and work on himself and learn from some of the greats. Once he gets himself right, everything else will fall into place. There is no extra pressure or stress added from the team and media for him to headline the rotation. All he needs to be is the third or fourth arm in a solid rotation.

The Houston Astros should jump at the opportunity to add Gray. Even though it will still be considered buying low, Gray won’t come super cheap. He is still a young, controllable pitcher with an ace-level background.

He won’t command a Kyle Tucker, Forrest Whitley, or Yordan Alvarez but a guy in the back half of the top ten prospects should do the trick and Gray would very well be worth it. He’s not broken, just a little damaged and with the track record of the Astros, this is the ideal spot for the player and a great potential situation for the team.

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For his career, Sonny Gray has posted a 3.66 ERA, 1.25 WHIP across over 900 innings of baseball. He isn’t a huge strikeout guy with only 789, good for 7.9 per nine innings, but is still very solid overall. He would be an excellent addition to the Houston Astros pitching staff.

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