St. Louis Cardinals star Sonny Gray will be facing his former team in the Minnesota Twins Saturday night as he also reminisced on his time with the ball club in an interview with Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star Tribune. There was a ton of interest from other teams in Gray like the San Francisco Giants in free agency last offseason, but ended up going to the Cardinals on a three-year, $75 million contract.
What about the Twins though? Gray would give his side of the story saying that Minnesota was “transparent” with the starting pitcher saying that they did not have the money to get him as big of a contract as he was looking for and other teams were willing to give. At that point, the 34-year old knew he would not return to the Twins, though he “did enjoy it here.”
“I knew pretty early on throughout the free agency process that this wasn’t going to be a place that I was going to come back to,” Gray said. “As much as I did enjoy it here, as much as I liked it here, as much success as we were starting to have and camaraderie as a team, as soon as the qualifying offer was made, I knew.”
“They were very transparent from the get-go,” Gray continued. “Saying, ‘Listen, we do not have the resources to give you a contract, as much as we would like to.’ So, I kind of knew that. Even though we did come back a couple of times and try to work on some things, I kind of knew early on that it wasn’t [happening].”
Sonny Gray doubles down on relationship with the Twins
In two seasons with the Twins, Gray had a 16-13 record and a 2.90 ERA in 56 starts where he was also crucial in leading the team to their first win in the playoffs in 21 years. There is no hostility at all between Gray and the Twins which he specified multiple times that he “enjoyed” being with the organization as he was the runner up for the AL Cy Young award last season with them.
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“Coming here, the way they think about pitching here, the way they talk about pitching, it resonated with me,” Gray said via Nightengale. “I was able to learn a lot here on the other sides, on some things that maybe I hadn’t been told, philosophies and stuff. It was a really good spot for me, so I enjoyed it.”
Now he is with the Cardinals which reportedly was a top spot for him and is facing his former Twins teammate in Pablo Lopez who made him better per Gray. This season, he has an 3.91 ERA with 168 strikeouts and an 11-8 record.
“Just being honest and transparent, which is kind of what we were here,” Gray said. “I think that’s the relationship that me and Rocco [Baldelli], the staff and everyone created. … Throughout my two years here, I was very open and transparent with them in everything. Everything that goes along with everything. So, they did that with me throughout the free agent thing. They weren’t lying. It wasn’t like they didn’t sign me and then go sign somebody else or go sign all these other dudes. Yeah, it just is what it is.”
