Braves battling Yankees in hunt for Sonny Gray

As the trade deadline rapidly approaches, It appears the Yankees are the heavy favorites to land Oakland A’s ace Sonny Gray. The Braves are still in it, though, as SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo reported this evening.

The A’s have already pushed back Gray’s scheduled Sunday start to Monday night, which would come after the deadline passes at 4 p.m. ET. It seems likely a trade will be made one way or another. Oakland would be wise to capitalize on Gray now; he owns a 2.73 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 9.05 K/9 and 2.87 BB/9 over his last 10 starts.

You will recall just two weeks ago that the Braves were very involved in talks for Jose Quintana before the Cubs eventually got him. They were in talks for Chris Sale, too, before he went to Boston. It’s clear that the front office is involved with just about every starter on the market. What’s unclear at this point — and should be cleared up within the next 40 hours or so — is if the Braves will finally dip into their talent pool enough to land one of these pitchers.

The Braves are effectively out of it for 2017, but Gray would be around for 2018 and 2019. The club figures to have Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb in the 2018 rotation, and it seems likely at this point that R.A. Dickey’s reasonable $8M option is picked up. I’d bet Julio Teheran is still around, too, given a trade at this point would be ill-timed. That rotation could be quite good — especially if Teheran returns to form — and it’s not hard to see why Atlanta’s front office would feel comfortable with it, especially with reinforcements in the minors on the way up.

The next day and a half should be fun.