Sonny Gray is going to New York and he should probably pack a razor.
The bearded righty starter will head to the Bronx in return for three prospects, OF Dustin Fowler, SS Jorge Mateo, and James Kaprelian. The Yanks will also receive $1.5 million in international bonus pool money (which isn’t the same thing as straight-up cash).
The Yankees need pitching help that Gray, who’s posted a 123 ERA+ with a 3.24 FIP can hopefully provide, and he’s under team control through 2019, so this is not just a rental. He also, apparently, provides the Yankees with an opportunity to make a Sesame Street joke.
Fowler (who is not, as Bob Nightengale tweeted, Dexter Fowler), is one of the Yankees’ top prospects, who you may remember as the guy who crashed into a wall during his major-league debut and ruptured a patellar tendon.
Jorge Mateo, signed as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 2012, has he’s put up good numbers for them in high-A and double-A this year. In 99 games this season, Mateo has stolen 39 bases.
Kaprielian, a right-handed pitcher, was the Yankees’ first-round pick out of UCLA in 2015. He underwent Tommy John surgery in April of this year.
MLB.com ranks them fourth, eighth, and 12th in the Yankees’ very strong system, respectively, and Fowler clocks in at No. 77 across baseball.
Going from the A’s to the Yankees and vice versa is probably one of the league’s most whiplash-like trades. It was probably inevitable that Brian Cashman and Billy Beane would put together a blockbuster with more than an hour to spare ahead of the trade deadline. We’ll look forward to seeing Beane send some or all of these prospects back to the Yankees once they’ve become productive at the major-league level.