Sonny Gray Trade Rumors: Sunday

Sonny Gray’s scheduled Sunday start has already been pushed back to Monday, and as of yesterday, the Yankees were widely rumored to be the favorite to land the Oakland ace. Generally, though, the state of play does not appear to have changed all that much much as of this afternoon. Still, there will be plenty of rumors on Gray flying around from this point forward, and we’ll track them all in this post…

• Indications from this morning are that the Yankees remain focused on pursuing Gray rather than a rental arm, as Jon Heyman of Fan Rag writes. New York has added lefty Jaime Garcia from the Twins, of course, but that acquisition reportedly will not deter their pursuit of Gray — who’d likely bump Garcia to the pen if he’s added.
• At this point, though, talks between the Yanks and A’s are at something of a stalemate, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. There are suggestions on both sides that the teams will stick to their valuations even with the pressure of the deadline. And that means there’s somewhat “less optimism” that there’ll be a deal sending Gray to the Bronx. Indeed, per Sherman, there hasn’t been much new dialogue of note between New York and Oakland over the last day.
• Meanwhile, the Dodgers are still talking with the A’s about Gray, MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets. But it’s also possible, he notes, that the ongoing dialogue is as much about maintaining leverage as it is due to serious, mutual interest.