Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Taking A Look At Sonny Gray Trade Options And The Latest Update On The Bally's Situation

Starting point is 00:00:00 If the St. Louis Cardinals are going to trade Sunny Gray, we've got three possible destinations for you, plus a massive announcement with Valley Sports and what it means for the Cardinals future. This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Haffern and I'm a National Radio Sports anchor born and raised in the Lou and a lifetime Cardinals fan. and I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Locktown Podcast Network, covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio, the podcast also available on Twitter X at L0104 Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:49 You can also find us on YouTube. Make sure you stop on by, like, subscribe, comment, and hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the that this episode is brought to you by booking.com. Booking.com booking dot yeah. The right stay can make you a fan of any city, even your baseball rivals. Book today on booking.com, the official accommodation partner of Major League Baseball. Get the booking.com app today. So hello once again, boys and girls. Welcome in to another episode of Lockdown Cardinals. We got a couple of things to chat about today. The big news that they dropped earlier this afternoon,

Starting point is 00:01:31 in the Diamond Sports Group announcement that they could be dropping the Cardinals broadcast as well as several other teams and possibly only keeping the Atlanta Braves. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. That's something that we are going to dive into later on in this episode. We'll get to it, I promise. But I wanted to start off with something, I guess it's a little more fun, depending on how you look at it. Some people will find this a little more entertaining than talking about TV.

Starting point is 00:02:01 TV deals and money and stuff like that because that stuff can be a little tedious from time to time. But this actually, what we're going to start with, has something to do with money because the cartels are trying to lower payroll. That's been established, right? We know this. We don't know yet how far down they want to drop the payroll. We don't know how low that it's going to get.

Starting point is 00:02:27 So it's hard to gauge which veterans with expensive contracts like. Sunny Gray, Nolan Aronado and Wilson Contreras, who still have years remaining and are still very good players. We don't know whether or not they're going to be moved or not. We know which ones are going to go be offered a trade option, which ones are going to stay. We don't know if they want to stay. If the Cardinals and this reset that they're doing is not something that they're in for. They don't want to be around for it. So still a lot of time to worry about these things.

Starting point is 00:02:59 but I want to point out that it's they don't have to trade these guys, right? Like they don't have to trade Nolan Arnato or Sunny Gray or Wilson Contreras. I personally think that removing Paul Goldschmidt's contract, as well as the contracts and the options of Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson, Andrew Kittridge, Keenan Middleton. I think it opens up plenty of payroll to go around. And I know we're going to get some of these guys who will, arbitration and obviously their their salaries are going to go up, people like Ryan Helsley and Lars Newpar.

Starting point is 00:03:39 But I don't think it's to a point where like you're freaking out about what your payroll looks like, you know. But again, we don't know where they want to be. But even the athletics, Katie Wu, reiterated recently in an interview that, you know, this is not something that the Cardinals have to do. It's a decision that they're choosing to make. This is not a situation like the NFL salary cap where, you know, they got to get rid of people to get under the cap or else they're going to face a bunch of penalties and whatnot. This is just a choice that they are making.

Starting point is 00:04:11 They want to lower the payroll. And again, we just don't know how far down they want to go. Now, whether or not the math adds up for the budget and what they are saying, that's a different story altogether. Our buddy, Jeff Jones, over at B&D.com, has some thoughts on how it doesn't quite add up in his mind. He's supposed to come on to the show here very soon. So I'm going to let him explain that stuff to you. He knows it much better than I do. But we can talk about the trades, right?

Starting point is 00:04:38 USA Today's Bob Nightingale mentioned this weekend that the Cardinals will look into shopping, Sunny Gray. And if they do, where do you guys think Sunny Gray will end up? That's the real question. Now, I made the joke on Twitter X yesterday where the Cardinals, if you went to the Cardinals website, cardinals.com, the first thing that pops up on screen there is, hey, get your season tickets for 2025 and Sunny Gray is the guy on the photo. So when you click on that link, it takes you to where you can purchase your tickets. Curious how many people have already bought tickets considering all the question marks surrounding

Starting point is 00:05:18 things at the moment. But there it is. Sunny Gray is the guy on the forefront there. So I made the joke like, so we're not training Sunny Gray? I mean, I would assume that the safe bet would have been to use somebody like Mason Went. If you're going to be trading away a guy like Sunny Gray when it comes to, hey, if you want to be excited about 2025 tickets, why would you have Gray on there? Why wouldn't you have somebody like Mason went? But anyway, where would Gray end up?

Starting point is 00:05:46 Where could he end up? There's been a lot of people who've written about this. Christopher Klein over at fancited.com did a write up about this. So I thought we could take a look at what his thought process was on this. see what he thinks about the options that the Cardinals have and what are some good landing spots for, Sunny Gray. Let's start with his, the first spot here. And this is a, the easy one because this is the one that Nightingale mentioned in his little, little blurb about the Cardinals shopping gray, and that is the Cincinnati Reds. Christopher says there is also plenty of reason to believe the

Starting point is 00:06:20 Reds can actually compete next season. Gray would presumably join All-Star Hunter Green atop the rotation. that is a fascinating ying and yang for Sincere to build around green melting hitters with triple digit heat while gray dances around them with every manner of off speed pitch. Experience in the bullpen never hurts and it's hard to overstate the value of two top shelf aces in your rotation. There's supposed interest in gray is a positive sign. That means the reds are seizing the moment and looking for big ticket additions, even at steep cost financially. One could argue that gray is the wrong ace to go after, because of his age and the potential for a decline in production these next couple of years. But SINC is not a free agent destination.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Vagers can't be choosers and such. Now, my initial thoughts with this when I saw the Cincinnati Reds was it doesn't seem to line up and fit with what the Reds appear to be doing. And they like to get guys, if they're going to sign a guy, you know, how they did it with Frankie Montots this year, where they signed a guy hoping for the best, pay. a decent chunk of change to bring a men. It didn't work out. They were able to move on from them. And that was that. Sunny Gray is not on a one-year deal or anything. You know, he's got a lot of money attached to him right now. I was told this offseason, like the fit as far as Sunny Gray going back to Cincinnati, that makes a lot of sense. Don't get me wrong there. It's the financial side of

Starting point is 00:07:52 this that makes me scratch my head a little bit. You know, I was told this off season that the Reds were very much interested in bringing Gray back. I've been told that he chose St. Louis over the Reds, that the Reds were right there with it. But are the Reds willing to take on $55 million in salary over the next two years on a veteran like Greg who, you know, he had this great year in Minnesota, very good with the Cardinals. But you saw the home run spike this year. You saw he was a, you know, a little bit more. hitable than he was before.

Starting point is 00:08:27 And then you're going to have him in the in great American ballpark where pop-ups are home runs. Sunny Gray was very good at Bush Stadium. I'm not so good on the road. So I don't know if that's if I was the Reds. This is a smart idea. But financially, it's hard to fathom that they would take on $55 million in salary for him.

Starting point is 00:08:51 And I don't think the Cardinals would want to eat any of that salary and then send him to a division rival as well. It just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense for me. But I guess stranger things have happened, but I just, it doesn't, it doesn't add up to me. It doesn't add up to me for him to go to the Reds. Now, if there was some sort of three team trade, maybe it gets worked out,

Starting point is 00:09:14 that would make a little more sense to me. So that's a possibility as well. I'll give you the next two places that Christopher picks next, plus a couple of other ones that he didn't bring up in his, in his write-up here that, you know, I feel like might be some spots as well. We'll get to it next on Locked on Cardinals. Hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on Fandul, America's number one

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Starting point is 00:12:45 Your first listen every day. You can leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want that feedback. Always welcome and encourage. Love getting the fan feedback there. Love having your voice on the show and being represented. You know, we like to know what you're thinking. Let's continue with this article, which is on fan-sided, three spots that Sunny Gray could end up that make a lot of sense. We had the Reds as the first one.

Starting point is 00:13:13 Second spot that Christopher mentions is the New York Mets. He says New York has the financial, well, let me get all the words probably up here. Let me get your picture, Sunny up there while we're at it. New York has a financial wherewithal to trade for gray. It's made even more sensible by the fact that most of the Mets very dependable rotation. Sean Maniah, Jose Cantana and Luis Severino hits free agency in a couple of months. New York will have its sights set elsewhere, so retaining all three seems unlikely. In fact, New York may try to actively upgrade across the board. The window has never been more open for a Mets takeover

Starting point is 00:13:46 in the NL East with Atlanta floundering and Philadelphia getting older by the year. We have seen New York's pursuit of expensive veterans backfire in the past, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer. But even those instances resulted in favorable trades. Luis Angel or does he say Luis and Hal Kuna was the Scherzer return package and he's about to start in the playoffs assuming New York closes strong. Now the risk is fairly limited relative to the upside of planting gray next to Kodai Senga atop the rotation. The Mets should be going all out this winter and Steve Cohen has never been afraid to add multiple expensive stars when the moment is right. Trading for gray shouldn't prevent the Mets from targeting Soto or Burns, if anything, it might aid their pursuit of the offseason's

Starting point is 00:14:31 Krem della Krem. Now, my thoughts on this is this makes sense for the Mets and for the Cardinals. It really does. But it doesn't make sense for Sunny Gray, who I don't know if he enjoyed his first go around in the city of New York when he was with the other team, the New York Yankees. The idea of coming to the Cardinals, if you remember, was he and his wife, the family, they wanted to be close to home, which is Nashville. So they chose St. Louis. They thought it was a good spot. Sonny has this no trade clause, obviously.

Starting point is 00:15:04 Not sure going back up to the northeast and going to a big city like New York is what he wants to do again, even if they are a far better team. So I'm going to say nah on New York. I just, I don't think just the way Sunny is, it just doesn't seem like it would be a personal decision for he and his family to go back to New York City. This next one, though, even though it's up in the Northeast, might work out a little bit better. And that's the Baltimore Orioles. Christopher says the Baltimore Orioles face an uphill battle to retain Sight Young candidate Corbyn

Starting point is 00:15:44 Burns this winter. The 29-year-old could command north of $300 million in total, which has never been in the O's budget. New ownership can change that and a deep postseason run might tempt Burns to accept a discount. But Baltimore is a long way to go before we talk about their front office the same way we talk about the Mets front office. If the O's do miss out on a Burns encore, it's only logical to hit the trade market in search of a viable replacement. Gray, too, has extensive October experience. And he would bring a certain veteran calm to baseball's youngest World Series threat. If the O's can get healthier around gray, their rotation shouldn't be much of an issue next season.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Baltimore has more than enough trade ammo to acquire Gray and more than enough. firepower to sustain a top shelf contender. Now, this scenario makes sense to me because if you're the Cardinals and you're going to trade Sunny Gray, you're going to try to trade him somewhere where they have a lot of good prospects, right? Baltimore has been one of the top five farm systems in baseball for a couple of years now. And they've also got guys not just in the farm system, but maybe even on the active major league roster that maybe they can move, that they've got enough depth to facilitate a trade

Starting point is 00:16:59 that way as well. You've already got some familiarity with the Baltimore Orioles following your trade with Jack Flaherty last year. So it's not like it's out of nowhere that you would have some rapport with the Baltimore Orioles front office. Again, though, does Sunny Gray want to go to the northeast or would he prefer to stay in the Midwest or maybe someplace more south? At this point in his career, I mean, it's not like he has to go somewhere north to find a place to play for a winner. You know, if winning a championship is as important as it is to him, but yet he still wants to be close to home. There are some other areas that I think make a lot of sense. You know, what about your teams in Texas?

Starting point is 00:17:46 What about the Rangers? What about the Astros? What about the Atlanta Braves? I remember this offseason when we heard that the Braves were interested in Sunny Graham. I was like, oh, man, I was like, how are we going to, how are we going to beat that? Because the Braves, they just have such a great system down there. You know, everything they do. And I'm not talking about farm system.

Starting point is 00:18:03 I'm just talking about they just win, right? They're kind of like what the cardals used to be. Like, they just figure it out, you know, how many injuries have they gone through this year? And yet they still made it. They still hung on and made it into the playoffs. people tend to thrive there. Look what Chris Sale did this year for the Atlanta Braves. Could be the NLSI Young Award winner.

Starting point is 00:18:25 So if I'm Sunny Gray, why wouldn't I want to go to the Atlanta Braves? Now, the problem for the Cardinals in a situation like this with the Rangers, the Astros, and the Braves is they don't have the greatest farm systems right now. They're ranked very, very low. They're like one of the bottom five, all three of them are in like the bottom five rankings of them will be pipeline. So they might not have the return the Cardinals would want, but they're also places that can handle the salary of Sunny Gray. And it probably wouldn't even think twice about it. So again, the Cardinals don't have to trade Sunni Gray. I personally would love to see Sunny stick around.

Starting point is 00:19:05 But the way things are going financial-wise, moving on from two years and $55 million, makes a whole lot of sense for the Cardinals. And I keep seeing online where people are like, well, they're going to, they're rebuilding anyway. So, you know, what's the point of having him on this team? I mean, this was still an 83 win team this past year. The guys that you're saying goodbye to, are they really? The main pieces of what this team needs to be moving forward to be good?

Starting point is 00:19:35 Not really. Like Lance Lynn, Paul Goldsmith, the way Paul Goldschmidt was this year. I mean, are you losing that much where you're not going to be competitive at all? I find that hard to believe. I really find that hard to believe. But, you know, people have different opinions on what some of these guys can offer. So again, don't have to trade them. But if they get an offer, they can't refuse godfather style.

Starting point is 00:20:02 You know, you got to entertain it. And the same goes for Nolan Aronado and Wilson Contreras. You know, what is John Moseilock said over the years? Like nobody is ever untradable. Like where, like, you would, you would just say no, no matter what. There's always a deal where you get to a spot. And you're like, okay, that's too good to pass up. You know, I can't say no to that.

Starting point is 00:20:22 So leave your comments on this down below and on Twitter X where we're going to get into the Valley Sports stuff. A big announcement was made today. We'll get into that next year on Locked on Cardinals. This episode of Lockton Cardinals is brought to you by booking.com. Booking.com, booking dot yeah. Explore those U.S. cities you've always secretly wanted to learn more about, whether it's some of my favorite places like New York or Boston. in her Vegas and Miami, San Diego. Gosh, I love going to San Diego. Such a cool place.

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Starting point is 00:22:02 The right stay can make you a fan of any U.S. city, even your baseball rivals. Booking.com, booking.com, booking. Yeah. Thank you again for making Lockton Cardinals your first listen today. Now go check out the Lockton MLB podcast. The fall classic is being covered by solo. each and every day. You can find the link to Lockdown MLB in the description. That way you don't have to go searching for anything. Part of the Lockdown podcast network, you're a team every day. So I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I know all the nuances about the TV contracts, who gets what and how much they get. I'm an on the field baseball guy. I'm not the financial wizard, the behind the scenes business person in a suit and tie that knows all of that stuff that.

Starting point is 00:22:52 it's going on, you know, basic math stuff I can get, you know. But when it comes to TV contracts and stuff like that, kind of over my head. It's not a whole lot that I know about that stuff. But there are people that do. They cover the Cardinals. And one of those guys is Derek Gould at SCL Today.com. He put up a story today about this whole situation. I'm going to link that story here in the description so you can go read all of it because

Starting point is 00:23:19 I'm not going to put the whole, I'm not going to read this whole thing to you because there's a lot involved with it. But I can break it down, kind of paraphrase some of the stuff for you of what's going on in the announcement that was made today. So Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of the Cardinals broadcast partner, Valley Sports Midwest, signaled today that it could drop the broadcast of the Cardinals and several other teams for 2025 if they are unable to renegoti their rights fees. Now, earlier on today, there was, you know, something was posted where, like, you know, if it's over, they're cutting ties and it's done, apparently that's not the case. They're going to try to renegotiate their rights fees, but if that breaks down and it doesn't work, then, you know, other things will have to happen here.

Starting point is 00:24:06 Now, Gould writes, while that would leave the Cardinals without one of its largest sources of expected revenue, it also could clear the way for them to seek a direct-to-consumer streaming model. So it's not all bad news if this happens. Diamond Sports, which initially signaled it was dropping broadcasts of some teams in court statements, has also approached clubs like the Cardinals about negotiating their existing agreements. The Cardinals have a 15-year contract with Valley Sports Midwest and is a business partner limiting Diamond sports ability to withdraw. Diamond has bowed out of similar agreements during bankruptcy. In a press conference earlier this week, Cardinals President Dill DeWitt III said that a future goal of the club is,

Starting point is 00:24:49 is to establish I direct to consumer broadcast. And in doing so, erase current blackout policies, navigate out of a collapsing model, and reach more fans. Now, I realize on YouTube, I have Bill DeWitt Jr.'s picture up there. I don't have a picture of Bill DeWitt the third, so get over it. DeWitt described developing an app that would be available via subscriptions as a few teams have been able to do when their broadcast partner bounced. The Cardinals are one of seven teams and the 11 mentioned in court who are under contract for 2025. This past season, Valley Sports Midwest paid around $73 million to the Cardinals based on post-dispatch reporting and research.

Starting point is 00:25:29 The number was set to go to $76 million or more for 2024. The Cardinals are not yet into the most lucrative years of that deal. So this is basically stuff that has been said in court files right now. That's what that's what we're what we're hearing. So the renegotiation window is, I guess, open. This is what I'm taking from this is that it's open. If they can work something out, great. If not, it's not exactly the end of the world. But now you're starting to understand why a lot of teams, not just the Cardinals,

Starting point is 00:26:05 are bringing their payrolls down because they don't know what money is coming in yet. They don't have that information yet. So I'm guessing they kind of knew that this was coming. although I did read that MLB was caught off guard by this. So maybe they didn't. Maybe they didn't know. But it's definitely something to monitor as we move forward because it's going to decide on what kind of money the cardinals still have available going into the 2025 season.

Starting point is 00:26:37 But you're starting to understand, I guess, why, you know, financial reasons. The cardals are going to move their payroll down some. And it's not just because they're overpaying for guys who aren't good enough. It's because, look, we don't know. We have a lot of question marks here. And if I'm wrong about this, let me know in the comments section. Again, this is stuff that is well over my head. But that's just kind of what I take away from this.

Starting point is 00:27:02 Again, you should check out Derek Gould's article for yourself or even more insight to all of this because that was just a small portion of what the whole story tells you. So links in the description. Go read it for yourself. See what you think. But obviously this is something that's been hanging over the Cardinals' heads for a while now. And hopefully it gets cleared up sooner rather than later. That way we can all move on with our lives and talk about more fun things like trades and free agent signings and stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:27:33 So that's the latest that I got for you guys. Thank you for making Lockdown Cardinals your first list. And every day if you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter X at L. underscore Cardinals and a JD Sports Radio, like, subscribe on YouTube to help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason, and I will see you next time on Lockdown Cardinals.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Taking A Look At Sonny Gray Trade Options And The Latest Update On The Bally's Situation

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