The Cardinals finalized their three-year, $75MM contract with Sonny Gray yesterday. It came with a club option for the 2027 season which reports had pegged at $30MM with a $5MM buyout.
That deal is heavily backloaded. As reported by the Associated Press, Gray is set for a modest $10MM salary in 2024. He’ll make $25MM in ’25 and $35MM in the final guaranteed season, with the buyout bringing the guarantee to $75MM.
The ’27 option is not strictly a team provision; if the Cardinals exercise the option, Gray would have the right to opt out. If either side declines the option, the buyout would be paid in $1MM installments between 2027-31. Gray also receives full no-trade protection, per the AP.
In the short term, the backloaded nature of the deal might be most meaningful for the organization. Had the contract been paid out fairly evenly, the team’s 2024 commitments would have jumped into the $190MM+ range. With the relatively low sum for 2024, Roster Resource projects the Cards’ player spending for next season around $180MM.
St. Louis opened the ’23 season with a payroll around $177MM, as calculated by Cot’s Baseball Contracts. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak indicated at the beginning of the offseason that the club figured to remain in that general area for next season. There still might not be a ton of remaining spending room, although the signings of Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn have checked off the team’s primary goal of adding three starting pitchers.
They’re also looking to add to the bullpen but could accomplish that via trade and/or free some payroll capacity by trading a veteran player. Tyler O’Neill (projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $5.5MM salary) and Dylan Carlson (projected at $1.8MM) are each into arbitration. Steven Matz, due successive $12.5MM salaries for the next two seasons, was pushed into the #5 spot in the rotation and could potentially be a trade candidate if St. Louis felt confident in any of their younger arms to take a step forward.
The AP also provides specifics on Gibson’s contract. Initially reported as a $12MM guarantee, it’s actually a $13MM deal. Gibson will make a $12MM salary next season and is ensured at least a $1MM buyout on a $12MM team option for 2025. The righty would receive a $1MM assignment bonus if traded and would lock in a $500K incentive for reaching 175 innings in either year of the contract.
Sonofagun I had a feeling the Gray deal would be backloaded. 35 million in 2026 good gosh.
Joel – You and I have disagreed on how good S.Gray actually is, but I’m surprised this was the best deal he could get in free agency (and that he signed so quickly to make sure he got it). What this says about the market for starting pitching and S.Gray specifically will be a storyline to watch this offseason.
Your really surprised that this was the best he could do? I think he did really well. He’s 34 years old and is coming off a career year in which he limited the long ball. I know St Louis is pretty much a pitchers park so he won’t regress too much there. I can see the logic of waiting for Yamamoto and Snell to sign might have earned him a few more bucks but did you think he was going to get more then 3/75? He might have left a 4 year deal on the table but he wasn’t going to command anything longer then 4 years. I don’t think anyone would have went 5/150 or even 5/125 for Gray even if they lost out on Snell and Yamamoto. What kind of contract did you seeing him signing and where? I’m just curious.
Judging by the Nola deal, I bet Gray he could’ve gotten 110M+ over 4 years if he had waited it out. They’re saying he really wanted to pitch for St. Louis, which is probably why he was willing to sign so early.
Nola is 4 years younger and has more track record then Gray. Nola was in that tier above Gray. I can agree that he is probably happy to be in St. Louis, I don’t see the Dodgers,Mets,Red Sox,and certainly not the Yankees throwing money at Gray if they missed on someone they wanted like Yamamoto or Snell. The Dodgers and Braves were in on Nola, he resigned with Philly neither team pivoted and signed Gray to a 4 year deal. And at 110 thats 27.5 a season, His AAV on this deal is 25. Not really too far off for what he signed for. I can’t look at Nola’s deal as a baseline for Sonny Gray’s deal.
After Nola signed for more than expected and turned down even more money than Philly offered, I thought Gray would sign for 4/$100MM. I think Gray is more a #2 than a #1 pitcher, so I think his contract is fair, but with top pitching supply being limited and Nola’s market being so good, I expected more for Gray.
Understood. Your not wrong with Nola at all and 4 years 100 is about the top deal I would expect Gray to command best case scenario for him. Gotcha. I like the deal for both Gray and the Cards.
Being well over 3 years younger is why Nola got those extra years. However, I disagree that Nola has a stronger track record. They’ve both had up and down careers, and they both have exactly 3 seasons where they’ve finished Top 7 in Cy Young voting without ever winning it. However, Gray had a much better 2023 season and has been better over the most recent 3 seasons combined.
Believe it or not some guys want to play in St Louis. And I believe he’s one of those guys.
Glasnow makes sense for the Dodgers but I dont think the Rays are getting that much back for him. I would take Gray over Glasnow all day so no complaints here.
Well aware that St. Louis is a very desirable landing spot and has been for years. Ownership that spends when needed. Great fan base. I like the deal for Gray and the Cardinals. Glasnow to LA does make sense. LA has the prospects to deal from. I see what you mean and like Gray as a pitcher. But I’m taking my chances on Glasnow if he’s ever healthy for a full season he’s a top 5 guy. And put him on this free agent market and he’d have no problem getting 7/230. Just the way the starter market is. I think St. Louis did really well with Gray
No way Glasnow would get 200 million dollars. If he was a free agent he would probably get roughly 1 year 25 million. He’s gotta stay healthy for once. Risk is fun for you and me but he’s too risky to count on.
You really think in this market Glasnow would get a one year deal? I was exaggerating with the 7 year’s because I think Starsburg got 7 but if you put Glasnow on this free agent market a team is going to make that jump and he’d get 5/150. Rondon got paid with a similar year to Glasnow. I very well could be wrong but on this market I could see someone paying top dollar for Glasnow. Injuries or not.
He’s never pitched over 120 innings in a season. How could a team possibly give him big time money and big time years based on his career performance to date?
Rodon was coming off 2 consecutive good healthy seasons before he got that big contract. Glasnow doesn’t even have 1 season like that under his belt.
Again Glasnow sounds fun for us casual fans who don’t have to pay the bills. But this is real life. You gotta be able to count on the guy you give a big contract to and he isn’t reliable.
Yamamoto is another example!
I’m a huge fan of Glasnow, but I agree with Joel that Glasnow wouldn’t get $200MM this year. He probably will next year (when it matters) if 2024 goes like I expect.
Chris – If Glas was on the open market today, he might prefer a 1 year deal at $25MM over a below market long term deal. Doesn’t matter, though, because he’s not on the open market. Next year he will be in a much stronger position if he has a strong 2024 (as I expect).
Joel – How come you never respond to my posts on Glasnow’s injury history, yet you use his injury history as your prime argument against Glasnow having a strong market?
For those who don’t know, the Rays asked Glasnow to delay surgery for several years so he could pitch in the post-season, which he did. TJS was always the destination, and he finally underwent TJS in 2021 to permanently fix his arm issue. He then went on to pitch the most innings of his career in his first year back from TJS (which also happened to be the innings target the Rays set for him in the offseason). There’s no reason his injury woes aren’t behind him or that he won’t pitch 175 innings or more next year.
I don’t know what injury posts you are talking about.
The fact is he’s never pitched over 120 innings in a big league season. That’s a problem. That hurts his value. Will 2024 be the year? Fingers crossed. And if it is maybe a team will give him a big contract but even then that’s scary.
did beth ban you again ?
He got 5/135 or 6/155. depending on the option I joked and said 7/230 then said he would get what Rondon got. Looks like almost the same deal. That’s shows you how teams value pitching!!
You had a feeling? Is that why you were guaranteeing everyone it wouldn’t be backloaded?
I don’t know what you are talking about Ray.
36, not 37. He just turned 34 earlier this month.
Gray’s contract isn’t shocking. Seems like if a player can experience being paid $25M or $35M+ in a single season they’ll take it, regardless of the overall AAV of a deal.
30 million dollars for a 2027 club option is a good chunk of change for a frugal guy like Mo. I think Sonny will still be an effective starter by then, so hopefully this works out well for both sides.
I think that’s a virtual lock to be bought out.
Yeah, I don’t see that club option happening. Mo would have to be blown away by Sonny’s previous year to pick it up.
$30M does sound like a lot. But if they’ve got to pay a $5M buyout regardless it’s essentially another $25M season. It’s still hard to see $25M for his age 37 season being reasonable but the Cardinals aren’t always rational about such matters. And who knows what the going rate for a veteran starter is going to be in 2027 anyway. I wouldn’t have thought $11-13M for Lynn and Gibson would be normal in 2024.
Yeah it’s a 25 million dollar decision. I think it’s 80% that it gets declined but if he’s coming off another season like he had in 2023 it will be exercised.
If he’s coming off another season like 2023 he’ll opt-out and try for a 2-year deal.
Yeah that is true most likely
I don’t think the future going rate for types of players gets talked about enough here. It’s speculative, but teams clearly factor it in. It’s not just salary inflation but also the quality of the class of free agents at a given position and skill set as well as rule changes and changes to the ball. Banning the overshift and getting rid of the 2019 live ball probably shifted the relative values of ground ball versus fly ball pitchers.
When have the Cardinals been irrational about picking up expensive club options? They even declined a pretty reasonable club option for Kolten Wong a few years ago.
I’m pretty sure Mo will be gone before 2027.. I think (?) his contract runs through the 2025 season, and he has made it seem in interviews as though he expects to be ready to move on with his life once his contract expires. All we can do is hope he’ll be ready.
* expects to be ready (tried to edit but it didn’t work)
If Matz stays healthy he’ll be better than a 5th. He was excellent after returning from injury last year. I like him better than Lynn or Gibson.
Big if. Guy seems to get hurt every other month.
Gibson and Lynn’s strength is innings. That’s not Matz’ strength. They are different types of pitchers. I would prefer Matz because I think the team has depth but Lynn and Gibson were just signed so they aren’t going anywhere.
Matz is the only lefty starter too.
Have a lefty is super overrated having good spirits is way more important.
If…
Relatively small injury history for both Gibson and Lynn is a “strength”. Also, seasoned veterans that will take the ball every 5th day regardless of game significance. They are not “children of anxiety” types. Well thought out additions by Cards FO.
You mean after Matz got demoted to the bullpen, although he was also good in a few starts after returning to the rotation until he got hurt for the last month and a half of the season, which was the only injury he had this past season.
Don’t bet on Matz. He’ll break your heart. He’ll go out for 6 starts and locate his fastball,mix up his pitches and dominant,then the next 6 his mechanics are all out of whack and he’s giving up bullets all over the place. He’s got all the tools just can’t figure it out. It those little runs that he goes on where he looks so good that he’s maddening!!
It’s a 3-year, $70 million deal and an option for a 4th year with a $5 million buyout. $10 million, $25 million, and $35 million for those 3 years. Takes him through his age 36 season.
I guess this means no extension for Goldschmidt.
The money is there to keep Goldschmidt. The team can do that exercise 1 of the 2 options on Lynn and Gibson and be alright.
Goldy shouldn’t get anymore expensive
Yeah I am assuming 18 million perhaps. Of course what he does in 2024 will be a factor. Maybe 2 years 18 each year.
I think that’s fair. And Goldy is absolutely the type to give the home team a little bit of a discount. I think it’s reasonable to think they bring him back for a couple more years in that ballpark of a contract.
It depends on how much of a pay cut he’d be willing to take. Obviously, he’s not getting $25M per season again on his next deal, but if he still wants $15M+ per season, he’ll probably have to go elsewhere to get it.
I think both the team and the player want the relationship to continue. That’s not a guarantee that it will but I think both sides are happy. There will be money to pay him whatever the 2 sides think he’s worth.
Goldy wants to win! After the Cards sign Yamamoto he will accept a team friendly extensión.
Cardinals going with the retirement home starting rotation in 2024. Is the farm that depleted that they have no young arms being developed?
Theres some decent young ones in Hence and Graceffo, the rest are pretty meh. I think they’ll be up in 2025, maybe sooner. A bunch of SP5 or AAAA guys hanging around too.
I think they’re banking on using this old timer trio as a deluxe insurance policy for they’re development program. They figure they’ll get one great, one okay, and one injury laden year from these guys, respectively. And that creates room for one prospect to blosom in a fill MLB role and another to get quality spot starts. The Cards are still a smart franchise so this will work out just fine.
They hope.
Gibson, Lynn 5+ ERAs last season. Not much in either profile to suggest much better except for park change.
Gibson was at 4.73, not a lot better, but it was still under 5.00.
The team has arms but they don’t want to rely on them for whatever reason. Liberatore and Thompson both deserve a shot. The AAA rotation should actually be pretty good. There are good young arms. Could have given Graceffo and McGreevy an audition last year instead of Suarez and Barnes I don’t know why they didnt.
Liberatore and Thompson both DID get shots this past season. Liberatore sucked. Thompson did OK, but they don’t want to guarantee him a rotation job, especially since they might need him to be a swingman again.
Graceffo and McGreevy just weren’t ready yet. They’ll probably debut ometime next season.
Liberatore didn’t suck the defense behind him did. Thompson wasn’t helped by the defense either. Looking at FIP both deserve a shot in 2024. Having them compete for the 5th spot made more sense than giving Lynn 10 million imo.
Graceffo and McGreevy both performed in AAA. That’s a hitters league. There was no reason to leave them at AAA and use bums like Suarez and Barnes and I think there was another bum I can’t remember his name. No reason to leave them at AAA.
At some point you have to let young guys play. And when it comes to pitchers this has been a problem the last few years.
Mediocre defense can’t fully explain a 5.51 ERA, nor why Thompson pitched so much better in front of the same defense. As for his FIP, a 4.28 mark isn’t that great. Liberatore at the very least has yet to prove that he is a decent choice as a Major League starter. Thompson may win a rotation spot, but he’s going to have to outpitch some guys in Spring Training first.
The Cardinals weren’t going anywhere last year, so there was absolutely no reason to rush Graceffo and McGreevy to the Majors before they were ready to possibly hurt their development and start their service clocks earlier than necessary. Using bums to finish off the season is what non-contending teams do.
You only let the young guys play when they are fully developed. When you have a contending (or hopefully contending) team, you can’t afford to let even the Major League ready kids play until they’re clearly the best choices for Major League roster spots.
Aside from a few top prospects, they then only get a starting job once they’ve proven that they can help you win in a part time or bullpen role more than the other guys you already have for those jobs. Even then, they can still be demoted back to the bench/bullpen/AAA if they don’t continue to perform. The Cardinals have recently done very well in this regard.
I believe in FIP. 4.28 is a back end starter 5.51 is not. I wanted Liberatore and Thompson to fight for the 5th spot and now they won’t get the chance because the Cardinals signed 2 guys in Gibson and Lynn who could be worse.
Graceffo and McGreevy were both ready. Service time doesn’t mean squat. They could have been learning on the job like Walker and Winn and Burleson and Baker were allowed to do.
The team was done contending after all the trades. And coincidentally that’s when McGreevy and Graceffo were ready for a chance too.
Hudson was blocked last year. Oviedo was blocked before him. The Cardinals are simply not developing young pitching like they used to and this offseason makes it tougher
Pitching development has been a mess. They look ok from 2026 with Hence, Roby, Robberse, Graceffo – and Thompson of course. If they get lucky it will be 2025 instead. But for nowthey have to buy innings.
It is basically a stall tactic to get two of their young guys ready for 2025. They have Hence, Roby, Graceffo, Hjerpe, Robberse, McGreevy, Bedell, Kloffenstein, and Rajcic all likely to be ready in the next 1-2 years. Obviously they’re not all going to pan out. Not even close. But the cards just signed two veterans to 1 year deals with the explicit intent/hope that 1-2 of them have MLB stuff and are ready to go in 2025 to save the team on payroll for other needs moving forward. No doubt they’d like to cover at least three of the four spots coming open in the next couple of years from that list. Two or three out of nine being at least solid MLB pitchers seems like a reasonable hope.
All 3 of those arms are ex Twin pitchers
And Lynn going back home is kind of sweet
From a Cardinals front office a move like this makes a lot of sense. Kick the can down the road and collect another paycheck while making fans think they are trying to be competitive. Figure the rest out later.
Free agency hasn’t been kind to Mo. The structure of this contract increases the chances that trend continues. Sonny Gray is a fine pitcher. He has also had a very hard time staying healthy. Back loading a contract for an injury plagued pitcher as he moves through his mid 30’s has a high probability of turning out poorly. I understand why they did it, and it makes sense on a spread sheet. But it puts the lie to Mo’s talk about increasing the investment in pitching.
Last year the Cards spent $17 million on Waino. $10 million on Monty. $5 million on Flaherty.
That is basically the exact same expenditure they will have for Gray, Lynn, and Gibson in ’24.
He’s averaged 150 innings a year for the last decade. He’s been healthy. He’s not an innings eater at all but he’s been mostly healthy.
By the time that 35 million is due Mikolas and Matz will move on so I get it but still not happy with the backloaded deal.
Agreeing with @Joel P in that he has averaged 28 games started per full season of MLB (can’t really count a late callup rookie season or the COVID year). That’s hardly “injury plagued”. Missing a start here and there isn’t going to keep teams from wanting to sign you.
Mo just said they would acquire three starters to hopefully get them back into contention next year. He said nothing about increasing expenditures specifically on starting pitching. If he and Girsch use the rest of their remaining payroll room on the bullpen, that’s a good thing.
Here’s an honest question to everybody around these parts that are so fiscally conservative with the owners’ money- consider that typically if most everybody seems to generally agree on a players’ value and years they’ll be good, wouldn’t the teams have the same general consensus analysis and therefore bids will be comparable and thus the winning bid will always have to be a slight overpay in either years, dollars, or both, even if the player supposedly turned down more money and/or years from teams they didn’t want to play for as much as they did the team they signed with?
In other words- it seemed to be consensus that Gray was going to get 3 years/$66M to 4 years/$90M from just about everybody. His contract wound up being in between those two values, with the difference either up or down being relatively negligible.
So why is everybody acting like this is automatically a bad deal?
Every baseball team has a mixture of league minimum guys, guys on bad contracts, guys on extremely bargain rate value contracts, guys who started out worth their contract and ended up not worth their contract, guys who were seemingly overpaid and then somehow exceeded the value of their deal, guys who play to exactly their contract length and value…. and that is every team. It’s all gambling.
So why is everybody so up in arms about Gray? A lot of these commenters don’t even appear to be Cardinal fans.
Might as well tell a guy like Gray “I know you’ve worked your whole career to get this substantial payday that you’ve earned and you just had a phenomenal season and really your only bad season and change was on a team that mishandled you and you weren’t comfortable playing for, but you’re a certain age and that automatically disqualifies you from having any real value and we’d therefore encourage you to retire or to play for pennies on the dollar. You are absolutely displaying performance that the market has determined is worth $20M to $30M a season, or about $25M AAV– but you’re a certain age and the risk you get injured is so great, if you want to keep playing, we’d like to pay you a fraction of that. No, it doesn’t really make a difference if we pay you $10M a year or $40M a year to either be a healthy productive pitcher or to be an unhealthy, unproductive pitcher, but fans cry about it in comment sections and we don’t want to irritate the peanut gallery, who, admittedly, find being irritated with off season free agent signings and trades to be half the fun of the game anyway. So yeah, could you take a massive discount on your services so that fans don’t call us stupid or so you aren’t accused of being overpaid?
Also we’re implementing a new system where random people making unverifiable claims on internet comment sections can determine how much money is too much money or enough money by their own standards and we are going to pick a comment at random and make our financial determinations based on that.
So, one guy can’t see being truly set for life for less than $3 billion cash and another guy doesn’t see how anybody needs more than $4 million cash, lifetime, across 80 adult years, regardless of inflation or location or any other factors. Which one will we determine your value with? Let’s find out. Spin the Wheel, Vanna!”
I mean, seriously….
A former player I know and won’t identify said FA was the difference between him living comfortably and his grandkids living comfortably.
Vanna doesn’t spin the wheel, she pushes the buttons to display the letters.
I agree with you, and I think most actual Cardinals fans do as well. It’s the non Cards fan trolls that are saying it’s a bad contract. They’re just trolling. Trolls be trolls.
I’m not even a Cards fan and I don’t think most of the people saying this is a bad contract are Cards fans, I think they’re just….
Look, honestly? I think they’re people who are largely bitter about their own financial situation and project that onto ball players and the entertainment industry in general.
I do often see comments along the lines of “He turned down 15 years $120M? I couldn’t imagine having that much money ever, why would anybody turn that down? These players are greedy!” and it’s a guy putting up 4.5 WAR on average who is probably worth $25M minimum on the open market and is only two or three years away from a free agency that will probably yield them 8 years/$200M minimum, probably closer to 10 years/$275M and they’ll still justify arbitration salaries totaling $50M before they even get there.
I grew up with friends from ‘both sides of the tracks’ etc. and there were some friends who thought someone making a salary of $50k had made it, anybody earning a salary over $60k was phenomenally successful and anybody making a salary of over $100k was basically rich. I also knew friends who thought anybody making under $500k a year after taxes were basically failures in poverty and anybody making under $1 million a year after taxes were effectively poor and anybody making at least $1 million a year after taxes were lower middle class and so on. And it’s because of how they personally grew up- one guy lived on a modest farm in a small town where him buying a new video game system every few years was a major luxury purchase, another guy’s family took private jets to Vegas and had season ticket floor seats to NBA games and he took all of that for granted. And everybody’s perspective was impacted by their idea of comfort and luxury based on what they were personally surrounded by.
It’s all about perspective.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse in St. Louis.
Wow! I like Sonny and hope he lives up to that contract. DOUBTFUL THO.
Reds dodged a bullet, if they really wanted him back. I wouldn’t sign him for more than 2 years. Career year without justification for low ERA.
STL basically signed 3 SP for 5 years in total, and maybe only Gray lives up to his contract in the 1st year. Lot of wasted money, but their GM has to be on the HOT SEAT.
I like Gray and the contract isn’t a bad one for both sides. But Lynn and Gibson makes little sense! If you’re a Cardinal fan you are used to this. Unfortunately we are in the middle of things but have yet to put a complete team on the field. A trade of Matz, Carlson, and two prospects to Tampa for Arozarena and Glasnow will have me thinking we are back in the Game!!! As of now we will fight for 500 only and maybe third place.
Its wishful thinking the Rays would give you Arozarena back along with Glasnow for Carlson and Matz unless those 2 prospects are Hence and Chase Davis and even then they’d have to eat money on Matz most likely almost all of it. And at that it would be a steal for the Cards. I think in 2024 Glasnow is gonna dominant.