Jon Gray spent nearly a decade in the Colorado Rockies organization, from being drafted by them in 2013 until reaching free agency after the 2021 season. Although there was apparently mutual interest in Gray staying in Colorado, the club was ultimately outbid by the Rangers, as they signed Gray to a four-year, $56MM contract.
The Rockies opened a series against Texas today, giving the Colorado media, including Danielle Allentuck of The Denver Gazette, a chance to catch up with Gray and discuss recent events. Once he became a free agent, the Rangers aggressively pursued Gray, not only in terms of their financials, but also their sales pitch in general. “It felt good to have someone say ’You are this good and this is why and we’re going to help you get there,'” Gray said.
The Rockies were apparently not pleased with this turn of events, as Allentuck reports that the relationship between Gray and the team soured to the point that there was “a little bit of fighting” as he considered taking the offer to move to Texas. There’s evidently no lingering bad blood, as Gray says that he would have been “on the fence” if the Rockies had matched the Rangers’ offer, and the sides are apparently on good terms now. Still, it’s noteworthy that the organization is developing a track record for having friction with its marquee players.
Just over two years ago, Nolan Arenado went public with his dissatisfaction, saying “there’s a lot of disrespect from people there that I don’t want to be a part of.” Before the 2021 season, he would be traded to the Cardinals. At the trade deadline last year, Trevor Story wasn’t dealt, despite being an impending free agent on a non-competitive ball club. After the clock ticked down to zero and Story was still in Colorado, he also spoke publicly, saying he was “confused” and adding, “I don’t have really anything good to say about the situation and how it unfolded.” He would eventually sign with the Red Sox. In Gray’s case, the club apparently made him an extension offer in the $35-40MM range, but then didn’t make him a qualifying offer at season’s end, ultimately losing him for nothing. Although the situation with Gray doesn’t seem quite as dramatic as with Arenado or Story, that still makes three consecutive star players that have left town with at least a hint of tension.
While outside observers can only know so much about the inner workings of the team, it surely doesn’t help matters if the club is building a reputation as one that is difficult to work with. They already face challenges luring in free agents, especially pitchers, due to the difficulties of playing at elevation. That’s compounded by the fact that they share a division with aggressive and competitive teams like the Dodgers, Giants and Padres. The appearance of conflict with important players will likely only exacerbate those burdens.
Gray going to win the AL Cy Young
well this is a hot take definitely not going to win the Cy young
I’d think Texas fans would be thrilled if he can keep his ERA under 4.50
suuuuuuure
Yeah, that’s not happening.
Unfortunately for Jon, he’s not “that good.” Rox made right call not to match.
He’s a solid 3-4 and was paid as such. Rockies have the worst FO in baseball and it’s not even close.
Scoreboard
No, he was paid more than a 3-4.
Yeah, for like the Marlins. Real ball clubs pay that kind of money for a 3-4.
Real baseball clubs are overpaying for 3-4 pitchers if that is what they are paying them. It is also an indicator as to why clubs in the lower half of the league in revenue streams won’t ever compete with the top half because the top half can always overpay and outbid lower revenue teams for any player that they want.
He got the 10th highest AAV this off-season between Rodriguez and Grenkie, both of which are middle of the rotation pitchers. Disagreeing with the market and what the market actually is are two completely different things. Scherzer got 40m AAV as a 37+ TORP, do I agree with that, no, but it’s what the market is.
Yea I mean in what works do u not trade a great player in story when you know he is walking. I understand maybe they didn’t get amazing offers but you have to get something for him unless you are going deep into playoffs
Ugh….
Won’t argue, but that’s a helluva statement considering there are other FOs like the orioles, Indians, pirates, d-backs, reds, tigers, marlins, mariners, etc.
Ugh…
I can’t hate too much on all of them. I’ll emphatically give you the Pirates, Reds, Marlins, Arizona and Cleveland (although the recent extensions are a good look for the team).
The Tigers and Orioles at least have a consistent direction and the Mariners have been a pretty solid franchise since DiPoto took over.
That being said, the Rockies have the worst front office in the game by a mile. It’s one thing to be cheap, which is still horrible, but to literally have the last three stars leave your organization with existing tension is an embarrassment. Like we know where every other team stands in where they are as an organization, whether it’s rebuilding (necessarily or unnecessarily a la Cincinnati and Cleveland). Colorado is just a dumpster fire. Like, how does a fourth place team with no hope of competing, not trade their two impending free agents when they know that they won’t re-sign, and then proceed to not give a qualifying offer to one of them? Like, seriously, had they traded both guys or at least gotten picks for both of them, it would have helped their situation tremendously, but they keep wheeling this half-way team out there, with one foot in the “We’re competing, even though we’re nowhere near good enough to do so” and “We don’t want to spend money or use any kind of analytics whatsoever”.
I’d also put the Mets on that list. While everyone is rather bullish on the Mets, they just spent a ton of money on aging players. They’ve already been snake bitten by injuries thus far, and quite frankly, it’s not very surprising. Most of their “big names” are on the wrong side of 33, and they’re books are going to be filled with sharply declining veterans for the next half a decade, which will hinder their flexibility when it comes time for guys like Alonso to hit the market. Doesn’t help that Cohen has tweeted himself into trouble, both with the Matz situation and by bashing his players publicly. It’s not a good look.
And this isn’t an Anti-Mets bias post from a Phillies fan either, because I’m not crazy high on our front office either. While they go out and get big name guys, and boast one of the better line-up’s in the league, the Phillies haven’t been able to draft, develop or properly manage their young prospects/players in well over a decade. They either rush these kids, or they never give them an opportunity, and made a vast overcorrection after showing up late to the analytics game. I tip my cap for going out and trying to compete, but minor league development is important.
There’s a difference between a bad front office and a bad owner. The Indians have a terrible owner, but a great front office. Tigers and Orioles were just bad teams that needed to rebuild after competitive stretches.
I’d say the worst ran teams are probably the Pirates, Reds, Mets, Marlins, and Rockies just because they tend to always put their foot in their own mouth regardless of if they spend money or not. A fish rots from the head down.
I’d say the Indians FO is one of the better ones. But whenever they want to spend more than $1 their owner just goes ‘no’. Hard to work that way
I’m obsessed with the Rox. Playing good teams and winning. Definitely not tanking with a clueless front office.
It’s less than a week into the season.
The Rockies were in the playoffs in 2018 and Freeland finished 4th in Cy Young voting. The following season he was arguably the worst statistical pitcher in baseball. This season is irrelevant to the crux of my comment.
Apologies, on a proper browser I can now see you weren’t replying to my comment below
In 9 of the last 11 seasons and the last 3 consecutively, the Rockies have finished at least 16 games back. They are not tanking, but they are not doing what is needed to win.
Stop being ridiculous – there are far worse FOs who have not been in the playoffs the last 4 years and didn’t have to deal with a massive ego and a cy young candidate suddenly becoming the worst starter in baseball the following season. They haven’t been good but they ain’t the worst.
14 Mil a year is more than 3-4
Well——- from what I hear— the Rockies Front Office is bad. But— that might mean the Owners are worse!!!
Similar to the Cardinals where Arenaldo has landed. Same situation!! The President of Cardinals Baseball Operations, John Mozeliak isn’t the golden boy some radio commentators describe him as. He isn’t regarded very highly with fans or former players or managers!!!
Mozeliak is regarded as the Cancer of the clubhouse within the Cardinals organization!!
A former Successful Cardinals manager, Tony LaRussa, whe asked if he saw any descent within the Cardinals players, or poor relationships??? LaRussa’s reply was—- There is no problems between players in the Cardinals clubhouse!!! The discontent come out of the Front Office!! Players have no confidence in John Mozeliak!!!
Mozeliak’s philosophy and message to their manager each season—- on Opening day—- the opening roster is the roster the manager will have at the end of the season. Trading deadlines will come and go with no impact players added to take the Cards deep in the playoffs!! Mozeliak’s philosophy—- backed by the Cardinals Owners—- only pick up Low Hanging Fruit players in the off season and the trading deadlines.
To be Frank—. The only reason the Cardinals obtained both Goldschmidt and Arenaldo was he (Mozeliak) was under public pressure to obtain an impact player because the Cardinals had regressed for 5 straight season. With no effort of improvement by the Front Office or the Owners!!
I’d say the money was about right. The Rangers probably expect his number to improve a little moving away from Colorado. The Rangers also don’t exactly have the greatest track record with pitching so they probably expected to have to overpay some to get the guys they want. All in all a pretty good deal as long as he stays reasonably healthy.
I disagree, the Rangers so have a pretty good track record with guys just like Gray. Evidence is Gibson, Lynn and Minor lately
I mean they don’t develop pitchers of their own. If they want quality pitchers, they have to buy them. For a team intent on emerging from a rebuild, it puts them in a weak position when negotiating contracts. Yes, I agree, they have had some success with pitchers from outside their organization.
Rox should have made a qualifying offer. He wasn’t going to take it. Terrible decision making.
$14 million per year for a healthy #3 starter is excellent value.
That’s not a lot of money for a guy who strikes that many hitters out.
If the Rockies truly wanted to keep Jon Gray, they could have outbid the Rangers’ offer. 4/$60M could have easily been justified. The fact of the matter is that Colorado had no real interest in bringing him back unless he agreed to a below-market deal. It makes no sense for the Colorado FO to be mad at Jon Gray. He and his agent did the right thing by telling them what the Rangers were offering and giving them a chance to counter. How does that lead to friction? The Colorado front office he has some real issues they need to work out if they truly want to compete again. They are very lucky to have such a loyal fanbase. They are always in the top 5 or 6 of attendance every year regardless of the product they put on the field. If the fans stop coming then things will only get worse for the Rockies.
Just read the actual article and this is embarrassing guys. There is absolutely nothing in it that suggests anything like what is written in this piece. Come on. Gray wanted to stay (which is what he told the team and is why they didn’t trade him at the deadline) but the Rockies didn’t want to match the Rangers’ offer (money they then used on Kris Bryant). Gray’s people tried to talk them into it, they refused. End of story. Absolutely nothing Gray said to the reporter suggests he thinks they mistreated him.
Well stated teamaholic.
Huh?
He just quoted verbatim from the article, then went on to go out of his way to say there is no bad blood.
Read the article indeed. There is no strong bias in this write up. Just reporting on another article written.
“As he considered the move to Texas, his relationship with the Rockies grew tense, Gray said, and there was a little bit of fighting between the two sides. The Rockies didn’t match what the Rangers offered, though. If they had, Gray said he may still be in Denver”.
Gray wanted the Rockies to match the Rangers’ offer to stay in Denver and they didn’t. Since when has high-stakes negotiations didn’t involve “a little bit of fighting”? It’s easy to dislike Colorado but this is a non-story about the best money.
Interesting that CJ Cron, Antonio Senzatela, Elias Diaz, Ryan McMahon, Jose Iglesias, Alex Colome & Kris Bryant seem to think differently about the Rockies.
Cron bypassed FA to sign a 2 yr $14m deal saying he wanted to be there. Kris Bryant indicated you play to get to a point you choose where you want to play. He chose the Rockies.
Players talk to each other. They know plenty about an organization before signing an extension or FA deal. I hear plenty of Rockies players talk about wanting to be there.
I think highly of the MLBTR writers, but “curiously” it seems the same writers can’t get enough of vomiting on the Rockies organization any opportunity they can. The same Arenado/Story/Gray write ups regurgitated endlessly.
…and then, of course, we get the same from the posters, “ad nauseum”. How appropriate.
The problem with the Rockies is not the FO……..
The problem with the Rockies is that they play their home games in a park that plays unlike any other ballpark in MLB due to the altitude. It affects hitters, pitchers and OF defenders.
They’ve been running out teams for almost 30 years now. Numerous FO people, consultants, and even college scientists have done studies and tried to come up with a way of working around the situation. So far, no answer.
The owner has been patient with his FO people – if anything, too patient. The fans in the area ae great sports fans and have supported the team. It might be great to get a name Baseball Ops exec to go in and overhaul everything, but I have my doubts that anyone qualified to do that would want to tackle the fact that his/her roster will be literally playing their game in two different environments. It’s one thing to have a park that plays big, small, cold, hot; it’s another that breaking balls don’t quite break as much and batted balls carry, It’s a if the FO needs to have 2 rosters depending on where they’re playing home or away.
Agreed. The Rockies will need to come up will a totally unique style of play and development in order to consistently thrive in that environment. I’ve said it before. Short outings, maximum velocity, and tons of strikeouts from their pitchers. High OBP type hitters.
DonOsbourne;
Agree.
What the Rockies should do is follow that Tampa does. Cleveland is doing that and their roster this year is exceptional. A bunch of young guys that play as need anytime in a game. Throw out the depth charts. Forget years-long development. The players have to be put in
a position to succeed at what they’re good at. If they work with the coaches on other things and can take on more responsibility, they’ll be given that chance.
Atmospherechanger and Samuel nailed it I couldn’t have said it any better. I hate how the Rockies are treated on this site especially by both the writers and some of the fans. The Rockies have always had good players but the park is a straight killer. German Marquez is right now one of the better arms in the game who goes completely unnoticed and sometimes disrespected. Put that dude in another park other than that one and he is consistently a CY candidate. They let Story go after trading Arenado and then sign Bryant and everyone freaked out. It’s not viable to pay players as much money as we’re seeing it’s that simple. There are only a few teams with the means to do so and even they are starting to realize they can’t do it unless they’re fools like Cohen and just try to outright buy a title. What are Yankee fans going to do next year when Judge goes someplace else? I’ll tell you what the smart ones will get it while the morons will riot. Colorado did right by Gray by not attaching the QO to him which would have killed his chances of getting a good contract. Just look at Conforto right now that guy is in the worst possible spot a player can be I’m not buying the injury BS he just can’t find a team willing to give up a pick for a so so player.
The Rockies literally deserve every bad word said about them. The worst, dumbest, most poorly-run franchise in the NL.
Homerism is mental illness, your wall of text proves this.
atmospherechanger;
This is the American media. They look to bring someone down and sling dirt. It’s nothing new, although with the Internet it’s gotten totally out of hand.
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In the early 1970s’ Johnny Cash had a TV program. He invited Merle Haggard on as a guest. During rehearsals Merle told Cash that he’s seen him play San Quentin because he was incarcerated there at the time of the famous concert. No one in the industry knew that. Cash asked him of he could make a statement about that when introducing him. Merle was hesitant as his career was just taking off. Johnny told him that if he tried to hide it some media person would find out and make a scandal out of it. Merle thought about it for a day. Was scared, but agreed. Cash made a short statement when Merle appeared. The public accepted it. Merle said it might have been the best decision he ever made in his life.
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MLBTR plays favorites and most posters follow along. If they think an owner or FO is not overpaying players or not catering to them enough, they’ll attack. The one I love most is the “service time manipulation” thing where rookies are not put on the ML roster. At the end of every ST the writers swipe at the owner/FO of teams – usually small market and/or rebuilding ones – for not opening the season with a young, promising, publicized player ,Kris Bryant is always brought up. What’s funny is this – the one that sent Bryant down was Theo Epstein. This is never noted, because they and most of the poster’s think Theo Epstein walks on water. So they protect him.
Is it really favoritism to point out that a team is choosing to manipulate an extra year of service time rather than put their best players on the field.
The Rockies have run out vastly similar teams for a decade. It hasn’t worked. Yet they do nothing to try and change their circumstances. They are probably the least innovative team in sports. If a player wants to be on a winner and questions the Rockies is commitment to that cause, the player is labeled disgruntled. If they don’t take less money to stay, they didn’t want to be there according to team management.
How about when they do not point out that instead of manipulating Trevor Story, they lost him a year earlier that they could have. He started the season and took off and they even chose to keep him in the majors the next season despite a MAJOR slump in which they could have easily justified sending him to AAA for a few weeks. But they didn’t. Nobody wants to remember the hundreds of players NOT manipulated. Just Kris Bryant who was.
How exactly are these “vastly similar teams” anyway? The Rockies from 2017-present have been best at starting pitching and weak on offense. The entirety of their history before that was the exact opposite. The team also started the trend of the humidor which many other teams use in one form or another now. If that is not innovative, I don’t know what is.
Five years of the same team. Most of the players from 30 years ago are probably retired. Does treating Story well mean he has to take a less than market deal?
And then homers like you come in here and write essays crying about how we are all making fun of your dumb team that never makes the playoffs when literally any commenter here could make smarter moves than them.
They really proved how incompetent they are by not trading Story at the deadline but also not extending him. Dumb, and anyone defending them are equally dumb and you all deserve to be clowned 24-7 until you actually win a chip.
Ironic the dumb homer is calling others dumb homers in one of his many angry spirited rants.
None of the players mentioned are superstars with the exception of Bryant, who was overpaid and already has a ring.
You can’t compare Jose Iglasis and CJ Cron to Nolan Arrenado and Trevor Story. Pretty sure both of them were non-tendered.
It’s pretty clear that Gray made promises about re-signing at certain terms, then got a better a offer and went with it. Hence the no trade and no QO with multiple public statements of “Gray wants CO and CO wants Gray”. Personally I don’t think he will live up to the terms of his TX contract.
@Powerslave – That’s quite an assumption you are making. If Colorado and Gray agreed to terms beforehand, he would have just signed their deal prior to free agency and not gone looking for better offers.
It’s not a stretch at all. It happens every day in other industries. Employer and candidate think they are discussing employment at a certain rate, only for the employer to lowball or the candidate to take a previously undisclosed offer. The popular theory is that the Rockies are just dumb, rather than the more logical theory that there was common ground and expectations that evaporated. No one is to blame, but it is fair to wonder if it was naive by the Rox, but wise to stick to their final number with no other option.
Based on track record, I’d argue with classifying that as the more logical theory
Why didn’t they trade Story for literally anything then? No excuse for that if they never were going to extend him.
By now it should be obvious that the Rockies need to invest in ground ball pitchers and strong infield defense. Huge side benefit being that those types of players are significantly cheaper than strikeout pitchers and offensive oriented position players so they can splurge on a big bat to man 1b and one of the corner outfield spots.
Literally anyone with eyes can see this, yet the Rockies literally never target groundball pitchers, because they are morons.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – The Rockies gotta Rockie.
You mean the team that publicly stated they wanted Christian players above all else treats players badly? Well, I never!!!
Rockies need to be contracted, they are a nightmare franchise who will never ever win a title.
A’sfan, I pray God’s Blessings over your life.
It’s easy to dump on the Rox; I’ve done it myself. They’ve done some mysterious things; as Samuel rightly notes, so has Theo Epstein. They’ve made some mistakes; so has Theo Epstein. But they’ve also developed talent better than most other teams, and MUCH better than many.
And credit is due in other areas They’ve never “tanked”, unlike their other high-mid sized market teams (Houston, Detroit, Baltimore); and even a large market one (Cubs). They do try to stay relevant every year, They’re actually a lesson for many teams; despite their struggles, attendance and interest (and revenues, which are the result of same) remains strong. Fans of some of those other teams should be so lucky.
Again, Coors is a tough nut to crack. And that (again, as Samuel notes), may be the bottom line.
Translated – ” I wanted a chance to win”.
Gray is past his prime. Rangers should have left him out of the deal. Whomever signed Martin Perez should be fired. He was horrible the first time as a ranger and he’s only gotten worse.