Could Atlanta's Offseason Pitching Add Be...Sonny Gray?

The former Braves free agency target is finally open to waiving his no-trade clause to leave the St. Louis Cardinals

On Thursday’s episode of Braves Today, I was talking about the likelihood of young starter Hurston Waldrep opening the 2026 season in Atlanta’s Opening Day rotation.

My conclusion was that he’s undoubtedly the front-runner for the final spot in the rotation, thanks to a 2.88 ERA in his final ten appearances of the season, but that any sort of marquee free agent signing for the rotation was likely to push him back down to the minors. As one of the only rotation candidates with minor league options next season, he’d be the one to move to Triple-A Gwinnett to give the Braves flexibility to find spots for that free agent in the rotation and, likely, bullpen roles for Bryce Elder, Joey Wentz, and Grant Holmes.

But there was a comment that stood out to me and inspired me to look at other options:

Honestly, who thinks they’re going to sign an expensive top-end free agent starter?

That commenter has a point. The largest free agent contract the Braves have given out under Alex Anthopoulos was the four-year, $65M pact given to Marcell Ozuna prior to the 2021 season. But this one, while technically a free agency deal, was re-signing a player who had been in a Braves uniform the previous season. The largest true free agent deal given out by AA has been Jurickson Profar’s 3/$42M deal this spring.

In light of that, it’s possible that the starting pitching add comes from the trade market instead of free agency, and a new name just appeared on the market: St Louis Cardinals veteran Sonny Gray.

Let’s talk about it.

Why Sonny Gray?

I wanted Atlanta to explore bringing Sonny Gray to Atlanta when he became a free agent following the 2023 season. It seemed to be a match made in heaven.

Gray was coming off an All-Star season for the Minnesota Twins where he put up 5.6 WAR after 32 starts and a 2.79 ERA in 184 innings. Both his Fielding Independent Pitching (2.83) and HR rate (0.4 HR/9) led all of baseball and he was the AL Runner-up for Cy Young. Across his two seasons in Minnesota, he covered 303.2 innings at a 2.90 ERA rate, a 144 ERA+.

Also, he’s from Braves Country, having grown up in Smyrna, TN and attending Vanderbilt University.

It made a lot of sense at the time to add a guy who had qualified for the ERA title five different times in his eleven-year career, was from Braves Country, and had a reputation for posting every season.

However, the Twins saddling him with a Qualifying Offer ended my interest - giving up what would have been the team’s second and fourth-highest picks in the 2024 MLB Draft¹ plus $1M from their international bonus pool would have been a massive price to pay for what would have been Atlanta’s #3 starter behind Max Fried or Spencer Strider.

Instead, he went to St. Louis on a three-year deal, joining offseason free agent signings Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson in a revamped, veteran-laden rotation.

Why would Gray want to leave St. Louis?

Gray walked into an organization in flux. The Cardinals were coming off four consecutive playoff appearances with two division titles during that span, but they cratered to a last-place 71-91 finish in 2023. The team’s rotation needed to be almost completely rebuilt, while several young position players were promoted to everyday roles as the team began prioritizing the next wave of talent.

Things haven’t exactly gotten better for St. Louis in the last two seasons.

After going 83-79 last year, the 2025 Cardinals are 78-81 entering their final series of the year and entrenched in fourth place in the NL Central. President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak is on his way out the door, with successor Chaim Bloom already in the organization in what’s been an…unusual and somewhat awkward arrangement. After the loss of former MVP Paul Goldschmidt in free agency after 2023, thirty-four-year-old third baseman Nolan Arenado is reportedly open to being traded this winter to a new team for his final few seasons in the league.

Gray is open to being dealt, too, answering if he feels like he needs to consider waiving his no-trade clause this winter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold:

“I think I do, just to be frank and to be honest. I definitely think I do. Whether I do decide that I want to go somewhere – whether that actually happens – I don’t have complete control of that. Obviously, I have control of where I can’t go or don’t go. I’m going to be 36. It’s going to be my 14th season. Last year of my contract for this. I don’t know what the future holds for me.”

While he hasn’t been as good with St. Louis as he was with Minnesota, pitching to a 4.07 ERA in 347 innings across his two seasons in The Lou, his fielding-independent pitching sits over three-quarters of a run better at 3.26 and he’s had a higher strikeout rate (28.4%) and lower walk rate (5.4%) than he did in Minnesota (24.2% and 7.3%, respectively). Team context matters here, I’m thinking.

On the surface, it makes a lot of sense for the Braves to pursue the veteran in an offseason trade. There’s just one complication: His existing contract.

It’s an awkward deal to acquire

The high-level overview of Sonny Gray’s contract that St. Louis gave him seems to be rather standard: Three years, $75M with a club option for 2027.

But the salary distribution is anything but standard. Spotrac has a great visual breakdown:

This thing’s a problem

The deal is heavily backloaded, with the first season’s salary of just $10M jumping to $25M in 2025 and then an absurd $35M in 2026. Additionally, the 2027 club option for $25M also carries a $5M buyout.

For context on these numbers, here are the MLB starters making more than $35M this season:

PHI Zack Wheeler: $42M
TEX Jacob DeGrom: $40.1M
NYY Gerrit Cole: $36M

That’s it, end of list.

There are more contractual issues here for the acquiring team, as well. While Gray’s luxury tax calculation comes out to a manageable $25M AAV, the new team won’t see that same charge. The CBT cost over the remaining years of a deal are recalculated when that player is traded. As the contract currently sits, the acquiring team would be on the hook for a $35M CBT charge in 2026, as that’s the only guaranteed year remaining on the contract. When you add in that they’d owe him a $5M buyout for 2027, it’s a $40M investment for one season of a 37-year-old that averages just 92 mph on their fastball.

But wait, there’s more. If you’re thinking about acquiring Gray and want to rationalize the CBT as really being $30M AAV for two years after you pick up the $25M club option, I have some bad news for you: He can unilaterally void your club option and go to free agency if he chooses. It’s written in the contract.

Tough sell, right? I certainly think it is.

How does the deal get done?

Hypothetically, if the Braves wanted to acquire Gray, there are a few routes they could take.

Option 1: Ask the Cardinals to retain a small amount of money, just to make the deal more palatable. I’m assuming this would be somewhere around $10M, although $13M staying in St. Louis would bring Gray’s 2026 AAV down to the “Atlanta Max” of $22M.

The prospect return heading from the Braves to the Cardinals wouldn’t be significant here - some fringe prospect that might not even be on the specific Top 30 list you’re checking out at the moment.

Option 2: The Cardinals retain half or more of Gray’s 2026 salary, somewhere around $15-20M. This would get St. Louis a legitimate return, although it still wouldn’t be an organizational top five prospect coming back. I’m thinking someone like Lucas Braun (#13 on the Braves Prospect Composite), along with a low-minors flyer.

The real question is how aggressive is new POBO Chaim Bloom and the ownership group willing to be when it comes to retaining dead money on the books for 2026?

I’d also expect Atlanta to attempt to immediately sign Gray to a contract extension, as they did after acquiring Chris Sale the same winter that Gray signed with St Louis. Guaranteeing the 2027 club option would prevent the uncertainty of Gray entering free agency during a possible lockout and tacking on a 2028 club option (one that isn’t voidable by the player) would give Atlanta some runway to replace Chris Sale if he chose to retire by then. Keeping Gray and additional deason would allow the Braves to break in their waves of pitching prospects that should be debuting during the final seasons of the new Gray deal.

What would Atlanta’s rotation look like if this deal gets done?

Spoiler alert: Pretty good.

Here’s my best projection for what 2026 would look like as of now:

Chris Sale
Spencer Strider
Spencer Schwellenbach
Sonny Gray
Reynaldo López/Hurston Waldrep (depending on if López is a starter or closer)

And in 2027, after Sale’s contract has completed², here’s the rotation at that point:

Spencer Strider
Spencer Schwellenbach
Sonny Gray
Hurston Waldrep
AJ Smith-Shawver/Blake Burkhalter/J.R. Ritchie/Didier Fuentes

It makes a lot of sense and would allow them to use their minor league pitching depth for the acquisition, versus needing to compete on the free agent market, where dollars reign supreme.

And if Gray has his choice of destinations this winter, the Atlanta Braves would be an attractive destination for him to select, as the organization perennially is in the playoff hunt every season (2025 notwithstanding). And he clarified that winning is important to him.

As Gray told Goold, “I came here to win. I signed here two years ago with the expectation of winning and trying to win, and that hasn’t played out that way. I want to win. I want to win, and I expect to win.”

1. Those picks became LHP Carter Holton, out after Tommy John, and LHP Herick Hernandez, who had a 3.57 ERA in High-A Rome this season, so jury’s still out on Gray vs the picks.

2. Although I wouldn’t be shocked if he pulled a Charlie Morton and signed a series of one-year deals every offseason into his 40s