Should Boston Red Sox Extend Veteran Starting Pitcher?
Sonny Gray has been a revelation in his first season in a Red Sox uniform.
Video Transcript
What's up, everyone?
Zach Coe here for Roundtable.
Wanted to take a minute to talk about a report from Chris Cotillo and Sean McAdam of masslive.com, where they said that veteran starting pitcher Sonny Gray is definitely interested in signing an extension to remain in Boston beyond the twenty twenty-six season.
And I think it's a bit of an interesting conversation from the Red Sox perspective because, of course, Gray is on a one-year deal with a mutual option for thirty million dollars for the twenty twenty-seven season with a ten million dollar buyout.
And Gray has, of course, been one of, if not the Red Sox best pitcher in the absence of Garrett Crochet.
He ranks in the top ten in the sport in ERA since Crochet went down.
But some of his expected numbers show that he's due for a little bit of a regression, and it's not to the extent that Lucas Giolito was in twenty twenty-five, which of course, his expected numbers caused him to sit on the free agent market for months, a month into the season, even, before signing a one-year deal with the Padres, where he's been not great, and that regression monster reared its ugly head there for him.
But Gray's expected numbers have him with an ERA in the mid-threes, which if you're gonna pitch a hundred and sixty to a hundred and eighty innings, while pitchers like Jake Bennett and Peyton Talley take a step forward, is still an incredibly valuable asset.
But from Gray's perspective, there's almost no real reason for him to sign an extension before getting that ten million dollar buyout when the Red Sox presumably decline that thirty million dollar mutual option.
Spotrac has Gray listed as an expected value of eighteen million dollars.
So sure, Craig Breslow could come to Gray with a two-year, thirty-six million dollar deal, and that says it should be about market value, but that deal will most likely be out there for Gray in the off-season, whatever it looks like with the pending lockout.
It would make much more sense for Gray to, like I said, hit the open market, collect his ten million dollar from the buyout, and then sign a pretty similar deal.
So the Red Sox would either have to increase the amount of money AAV that they'd be offering Gray in order to tear up that buyout or look to bring him back in free agency.
So it's a pretty interesting calculus for the team to make, and honestly, maybe Gray just likes it in Boston so much that he's willing to tear it up and take the discount to save the team some money under the impression that they'll go out and spend that money to make their team better elsewhere.
But an interesting conversation.
Cotillo and McAdam note that the two sides haven't had any discussions yet regarding an extension, of course, just a couple days away from the trade deadline, so the front office is putting all their resources and all their time into making the team better for twenty twenty-six.
