To hear from the national media, Sonny Gray is the “belle of the ball” this trading season, the most coveted deadline acquisition teams will be lining up and bidding to snatch. This would be somewhat counter-intuitive to A’s fans who watched Gray labor, laboriously, through an injury, crooked number plagued 2016 that yielded awful results (5-11, 5.69 ERA), and who then watched more inconsistency as Gray returned to the rotation in 2017 — following yet more aches and pain that delayed the start to his season.
However, scouts are drooling at other observations that suggest Gray might be back in 2015 form, when he finished 3rd in the Cy Young award voting and completed 2.