The St. Louis Cardinals are in a serious rebuilding phase under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, while Bloom’s previous club, the Boston Red Sox, are looking to improve their roster — the starting rotation — especially under third‑year Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow.
The two organizations found their interests coming together last week when the Red Sox sent pitching prospect Brandon Clarke and 25‑year-old righty Richard Fitts to St. Louis, getting 13‑year veteran and three‑time All‑Star Sonny Gray in return.
Gray: ‘Easy to Hate the Yankees’
With ace Garrett Crochet and homegrown fifth‑year starter Brayan Bello, the Red Sox now appear to have solidified the top three spots in their rotation, though Breslow has not closed the door on acquiring another frontline starter.
Either way, the Red Sox introduced their newest starter to the Boston media and fans Tuesday morning — and the 36‑year‑old right‑hander didn’t spare anything when asked why he chose to waive the no‑trade clause in his contract to join his new team.
“It feels good to me to go to a place where it’s easy to hate the Yankees,” Gray said in the press conference, in which Gray appeared by video call from his home in Nashville, as quoted by USA Today.
Of course, the Red Sox and New York Yankees remain bitter rivals, a rivalry that saw its latest chapter unfold in this year’s American League Wild Card series when the Yankees defeated Boston 2-1, ending a streak of three postseason series won by the Red Sox — the 2004 AL Championship Series, 2018 Division Series and 2021 Wild Card game (the final season of a one‑game Wild Card playoff).
Gray Has Bad Memories of Time With Yankees
But Gray has seen the other side of the rivalry. He pitched for the Yankees in 2017 and 2018, but was left off the ALDS roster and did not pitch against the Red Sox in that series. New York then traded Gray to the Cincinnati Reds after that season.
Gray later blamed the Yankees for forcing him to change his pitching style, he told the New York Post. Judging by his comments on Tuesday, his bitterness toward the Yankees organization remains with him several years later.
“New York just wasn’t a good situation for me. wasn’t a great setup for me and my family. I never wanted to go there in the first place,” Gray said in the video conference, posted on social media by MLB Network.
College Roomies With Grandson of Red Sox Legend
Gray was a first‑round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics in 2011 out of Vanderbilt. The A’s traded him to the Yankees in 2017.
“We were in Oakland and, you know, I was getting traded. That was a long time ago,” Gray continued. “I never wanted to go there. So then I was there and it just kind of like — it just didn’t really work for who I am.”
Gray, a native of Nashville, also said he considers himself “more Boston than any other place,” as quoted by Boston Globe reporter Alex Speier, and said that his attraction to the city was shaped in part by his Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and his college roommate Mike Yastrzemski, a former San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals outfielder who is also the grandson of Red Sox legend and Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.
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