Yankees asked Reds for top OF prospect in Sonny Gray trade talks

The Winter Meetings are officially underway and the Yankees are expected to be very active this week as they usually are. One move that could take place in the coming days is a trade of Sonny Gray and according to reports, the team is looking for something good in return.

One of the Yankees main goals this offseason was to trade Sonny Gray which shouldn’t be too difficult considering there’s a lot of teams around the league with interest. The Cincinnati Reds have been one of the teams linked to Gray but if a deal is going to get done the Yankees are probably going to want one of their better prospects coming back.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted today that the Yankees asked the Reds about Taylor Trammel their top OF prospect and the 17th best in the game according to MLB.com.

As Sherman noted the Reds said no to the request, but the Yankees are clearly not going to trade away Gray just for the sake of getting rid of him. They still believe he can be a very good pitcher outside of New York so they’re going to do everything they can to get something really valuable for him.

Getting a prospect as highly touted as Trammell in return for Gray might seem a little ridiculous but I give Brian Cashman and company credit for asking. With as many as 11 teams reported to have interest in acquiring Gray it only makes sense for Cashman to keep asking for a lot until he finds the best deal.

A lot of teams still believe that Gray has the tools to be successful again and if you take a look at his home and road splits from a season ago you can understand why.

Home in 2018: 4-4, 6.98 ERA, 45 K’s, 59.1 IP, .318 OPP AVG, 11 HR, 1.90 WHIP

Away in 2018: 7-5, 3.17 ERA, 78 K’s, 71 IP, .226 OPP AVG, 3 HR, 1.15 WHIP

It’s really amazing how much he struggled to pitch at Yankee Stadium because on the road the numbers show he basically pitched like the All-Star he once was with the Oakland A’s. Granted the Yankees did their best to avoid pitching him against the Red Sox and started him mostly against teams with poor records. However, there’s no doubt when he took the mound on the road he was exponentially better.

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If Gray does end up in Cincinnati one name the Yankees should continue to ask about is Scooter Gennett their All-Star second basemen. Gennett is in the last year of his contract so he’s expendable especially since the Reds are looking to open up a spot in their infield for their top prospect Nick Senzel to play every day.

In the tweet above, Sherman also wrote that if the Yankees want more in return for Gray they could attach one of their upper-level prospects to do so. In order to get Gennett for Gray maybe the Yanks could add in someone like Chance Adams because the Reds still need all the pitching help they can get.

The San Diego Padres are another team with heavy interest in Gray but they don’t really have anyone on their big league roster I could see the Yankees wanting in return for him. That’s not a bad thing because what they do have is one of the best farm systems in baseball.

There’s a lot of quality prospects the Yankees could potentially choose from in a deal for Gray which could benefit them more in the long run.