Reds trade Sonny Gray to the Twins

The Cincinnati Reds’ attempts at relevance in the NL Central in recent years have had limited amounts of success. The Brewers, Cardinals, and Cubs have all remained pretty good ballclubs and while the Reds did manage to make it to the playoffs in 2020, they have otherwise been unable to break through despite making some real moves to shore up both sides of the ball.

With Reds’ ownership seemingly being unwilling to invest in this roster any further, moving on from players who don’t have a ton of team control left and who were set to make a decent amount of money in 2022 was definitely in the cards and Sunday they made one such move.

While Gray wasn’t nearly as good as he was in 2020, he still put up a very reasonable 3.3 rWAR season for the Reds last year with a 4.19 ERA. He also has two years of team control remaining on his deal as he is going to make $10.2 million in 2022 and has a club option for $12 million next season. Chase Petty is a fine pitching prospect, but considering that this return is comparable for what Oakland got for just one year of Chris Bassitt...well, there are certainly some questions as to what the Reds’ thinking is here.