Sonny Gray ripping Yankees upon Red Sox arrival is another message to Brian Cashman

When the Boston Red Sox traded for Sonny Gray last week, New York Yankees fans hardly blinked. If this was the No. 2 starter Craig Breslow promised, it would objectively end up being hilarious fodder for Red Sox fans to lose their minds. If he was a luxury depth acquisition, then we'd call it a solid deal, but again, Gray at 36 is nothing to fear.

Yankees fans know this firsthand, as Brian Cashman traded for the right-hander back in 2017. Remember that? You sure do! Gray was an awful Yankee who eventually got relegated to the bullpen. He registered a hilariously bad 1.6 WAR in 41 games with the Yankees before he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds prior to the 2019 season.

And what do you know ... Gray put up 6.2 WAR in 31 starts that year and finished seventh in the Cy Young voting. Outside of that, his 2023 All-Star season was another banner campaign, but he's largely been "fine" during his stints with the Reds, Twins and Cardinals.

The Yankees have nothing to be concerned about now that he's in the AL East, though. Gray owns a 4.15 ERA and 1.41 WHIP in eight career starts against New York. He's also been bad against the Rays and Orioles (and his 2.91 ERA vs the Blue Jays is nice until you see his 1.41 WHIP, indicating some luck).

Now it's up to the Yankees to respond to some trash talk, because Gray opened one up on the Bombers during his intro presser with the Sox.

Sonny Gray just went a message to Yankees GM Brian Cashman during Red Sox intro presser

More importantly, however, this is a message (for the 100th time) for Brian Cashman. STOP. ACQUIRING. PLAYERS. WHO. DON'T. WANT. TO. BE. IN. NEW. YORK! Do we need that on a banner flown over Yankee Stadium throughout the offseason and a month before the trade deadline? Why is this so hard to put into practice?

We can blame former Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild all we want. At the end of the day, Gray needed to perform. He was a Cy Young candidate before arriving in New York. An old man pitching coach did not completely ruin his mechanics. His rough 2016, followed by being placed in an uncomfortable environment, did that.

Gray put up his best seasons in Oakland, Cincinnati and Minnesota. See a trend there? Those teams have been in the bottom 10 of attendance for the better part of the last decade! He clearly prefers smaller markets, and maybe that wasn't evident back in 2017 since he was entering just his fourth full season, but it goes to show that the Yankees and Cashman don't put in the necessary legwork when identifying the best trade/free agent fits.

If Gray, unprompted, was this open about his lack of a desire to be in New York during an introductory presser that has nothing to do with the Yankees, don't you think he might've been vocal about it if he was approached about a potential fit in New York when the A's were discussing him in trades? Mind you, this is not an outlier of a mistake from the Yankees.

Look at Joey Gallo. Aroldis Chapman. Aaron Hicks. Josh Donaldson. JA Happ. Rougned Odor. Alex Verdugo. Marcus Stroman. Devin Williams. And there are plenty more! Guys who didn't want to be here and were vocal about it after the fact, or guys who couldn't have been less of a fit upon their arrival.

We feel like this article has been written 15 times over. But within the past six months we have Chapman and Gray arriving in Boston and lambasting the Yankees in some capacity. The front office, plain and simple, needs to bring back some form of human element to the game. It's intrinsic to the character of New York. Imperfect fits have set this franchise back long enough. Go find the grinders who want to be here and aren't scared of the bright lights, unrelenting media and stress of the city life.