Cincinnati Reds: Mock trade brings Sonny Gray to the Queen City

Sonny Gray’s future is up in the air. In our simulated FanSided GM meetings, the Cincinnati Reds were able to swing a mock trade for the right-hander.

Every offseason, FanSided’s MLB division puts on a Mock Winter Meetings, where we, as site experts, get to pretend to take over the role of general manager for a week. There are several rules and guidelines to make all the moves and signings as realistic as possible. Essentially, Blog Red Machine will be playing the role of the Cincinnati Reds GM.

This mock trade is one that I think everyone in Reds Country can get behind. In what’s been a busy simulation of the Winter Meetings, Blog Red Machine, standing in as the Reds GM, made a faux deal with our friends over at Yanks Go Yard who are controlling all the mock moves the New York Yankees make.

In this mock trade, that most Reds fans would like to see happen in real life, Cincinnati parted ways with second base prospect Shed Long and pitching prospect Tanner Rainey in exchange for starting pitcher Sonny Gray. Gray is a former first-round pick out of Vanderbilt University.

Gray has been a hot name for the Cincinnati Reds this offseason, so in an effort to rev up the fan base and secure a much-needed starter, Blog Red Machine pulled the trigger on this mock trade. This is the third faux trade that the Reds have been involved in during this simulation, and a third potential starter added to the roster.

Gray went 11-9 with the Bronx Bombers last season and had an ERA of 4.90. Those numbers aren’t bad, but they’re not good either. The hope with a hypothetical trade like this would be for Gray’s former pitching coach at Vanderbilt and newly hired pitching coach for the Reds, Derek Johnson, to use his knowledge of Gray’s abilities and get the best out of him.

Gray is in the final year of arbitration and is expected to make around $9 million. With the payroll increasing next season and the previous mock trades of Homer Bailey and Raisel Iglesias, the Reds have a bunch of money to spend during this simulated offseason.

This mock trade saw the Cincinnati Reds move on from Shed Long, who is a very talented player but is blocked by several talented infielders already. We also said a theoretical goodbye to Tanner Rainey, who had a season he’d like to forget in 2018. Rainey played in 8 games with the Reds and had an ERA of 24.43. That’s not a typo.

Who knows if the Cincinnati Reds could really pull off a trade for Sonny Gray, and who knows what it would cost to get him. But, I do know this, if getting a player like Gray, who is just three years removed from his All-Star season in 2015, would cost the Reds two prospects, they should make that deal.