Sonny Gray lied about wanting to play for New York

New Purple Sox pitcher Sonny Grey didn’t mince phrases final week when requested about becoming a member of Boston after beforehand spending components of two seasons taking part in for the Yankees. 

“I’ll let you know what did issue into my choice to return to Boston,” Gray said in his first meeting with the Boston media. “It feels good to me to go to a spot now the place, what, it’s simple to hate the Yankees. … “New York simply wasn’t scenario for me. It wasn’t an ideal setup for me and my household. I by no means needed to go there within the first place.”

It ought to come as little shock that the Purple Sox and Yankees are buying and selling barbs, even in the midst of the offseason. 

However, longtime Yankees GM Brian Cashman had a bone to choose with Grey’s feedback about by no means eager to play for the Yankees throughout his years pitching for the A’s.

Speaking to The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty and different reporters at MLB’s Winter Conferences in Orlando, Cashman mentioned that Grey — then pitching for Oakland — made it abundantly clear to a number of people that he needed to play for the Yankees. 

“When he was with the A’s, he was telling our minor-league video coordinator, ‘You bought to get me over to the Yankees,’” Cashman mentioned. “‘Inform Money, get me over to the Yankees. I would like out of Oakland. I desire a championship.’”

However issues went south after New York finally traded for Grey in July 2017.  Regardless of incomes three All-Star nods throughout his 13-year MLB profession, Grey had a tough stretch throughout his two seasons in The Bronx — going 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA over that stretch.

Throughout his lone full season with the Yankees in 2018, Grey posted an ERA of 4.90 and was finally bumped out of the beginning rotation in August.

Cashman instructed reporters that as Grey continued to wrestle in The Bronx, the then-Yankees starter instructed him in 2018 that he by no means needed to pitch for New York within the first place. 

“That’s when he instructed me he by no means needed to be right here,” Cashman mentioned. “He hates New York. ‘That is the worst place.’ He simply sits in his lodge room.”

Based on Cashman, Grey’s preliminary need to affix New York was extra of a ruse orchestrated by Grey’s agent, Bo McKinnis. 

“‘(McKinnis) instructed me to try this,’” Cashman mentioned Grey instructed him.  “‘(He) instructed me to lie.’”

“‘I want you’d have instructed me properly beforehand,’” Cashman recalled saying to Grey whereas retelling the interplay to reporters. “‘I want we knew this earlier than we even tried to amass you, that you just by no means needed to return right here.’ We tried to do our homework.”

Regardless of Grey’s depressing stint in New York, the righty has rebounded because the Yankees traded him forward of the 2019 season. 

Grey completed seventh in NL Cy Younger voting in 2019 with the Reds — sporting a 11-8 report and a 2.87 ERA. He went on to complete second in AL Cy Younger voting with the Twins (8-8, 2.79 ERA) in 2023.

 

Conor Ryan is a workers author masking the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Purple Sox for Boston.com, a job he has held since 2023.