Reds trade Sonny Gray to Minnesota

The baseball world had been pretty much at a stand-still since December, when the owners locked the players out and the refused to negotiate for something like two months. Then, the sides finally got together, and sometime later, came together. And just like that, baseball was back. With it came a flurry of news, although none of it involving your favorite team.

Until now.

The Reds are back, and they are aligning some damn resources to some damn payroll, baby.

Gray, you may remember, is a pretty good pitcher. He struggled a bit in 2021, mostly due to injuries that kept him to only 135.1 innings pitched and an ERA a touch over 4. He’s also 32 years old this season but, none of that really makes a bit of difference. The real number to know here is 10 million. That’s the number that the Reds were due to pay Sonny this season, a figure they simply have no desire in forking over for a player on a team they have no intention on having contend.

There is simply no money in the banana stand, folks. Or, at least that’s what Bob and the rest of the Castellinis would have you think.

In all, Sonny Gray pitched in three seasons for the Reds, including of course the shortened 2020 COVID season. In total, he finishes his Reds career with 366.2 IP and a 3.49 ERA through 68 starts.

Chase Petty was the first round pick of the Twins just last season, at number 26 overall. He’s all of 18 years old right now, picked straight out of a New Jersey high school. He’s got upper 90s heat, but it appears a lot of opinions on his future is as a reliever.

Of course, none of that really matters, either. What you need to know, from the Reds point of view, is that Chase Petty is owed basically no money for the foreseeable future, and that is a trait that they really like about their players.

We’ll probably know more firmly what he can do in four or five seasons, when he’s flipped as another part of an ongoing Reds penny pinching resource allocation.

A more thorough write up of Petty will be coming soon, so stay tuned for that. If you can stomach it.