SAN FRANCISCO — Within an hour of the Cardinals’ formal, mathematical elimination from the National League playoffs late Wednesday night, starter Sonny Gray delivered a detailed review of his season and how “very strong” he felt at its end. Strong enough, he explained, that if the Cardinals were postseason-bound he’d be “catching a wind” into October.
Instead, he’ll spend that time deciding if he needs to go elsewhere to get there.
The Cardinals’ leading starter and highest-salaried player finished his season with six solid innings Wednesday against the San Franciso Giants in the Cardinals’ 4-3 loss at Oracle Park, and afterward Gray acknowledged he must consider waiving his no-trade clause this winter.
“I think I do, just to be frank and to be honest,” the veteran said. “I definitely think I do. Whether I do decide that I want to go somewhere – whether that actually happens – I don’t have complete control of that. Obviously, I have control of where I can’t go or don’t go. I’m going to be 36. It’s going to be my 14th season. Last year of my contract for this. I don’t know what the future holds for me.
“Truly, I don’t know what that looks like for me yet.”
This offseason, as Chaim Bloom takes over as president of baseball operations, the Cardinals will explore trade interest in Gray and approach him about where he’s interested in going, multiple sources described. The Atlanta Braves plan to shop for starters and a quick reset this winter. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Giants will have interest in adding a pitcher like Gray. He’s owed $35 million in 2026. The Cardinals want to trim or reallocate payroll as they lean further into their youth. They also will seek to move third baseman Nolan Arenado. The club expects to cover some of his remaining contract.
Gray, coming off a second consecutive 200-strikeout season and one of his best when it comes to advanced metrics, offers a trade piece that could bring a helpful return for a team not yet pushing to contend.
Gray said he’s had “ample” talks with Bloom about the Cardinals’ plans.
“I know the deal. I know the deal,” Gray said. “I know the direction.”
It is not the one Gray expected when he signed with the Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season. Gray’s three-year, $75-million deal includes an option for 2027 that would make it the first $100-million contract the Cardinals finalized with a free agent who had not previously been with them. The Cardinals offered the veteran Gray, who was coming off a runnerup finish for the American League Cy Young Award, a club close to his Tennessee home, a historic franchise and mid-sized market, and the promise of annual contention. Until a year ago, it didn’t.
This past offseason, Gray informed the Cardinals his preference was to remain with the team as they entered a transition summer and they did not explore trades.
“I came here to win,” Gray said late Wednesday at Oracle Park. “I signed here two years ago with the expectation of winning and trying to win, and that hasn’t played out that way. I want to win. I want to win, and I expect to win.”
In his first career appearance at Oracle, Gray gave the Cardinals every chance to do that.
The right-hander struck out three of the first four batters he faced, and in the fifth inning he needed three pitches to mystify rookie Bryce Eldridge for his sixth strikeout of the game and 200th of the season. Gray got it, fittingly, with a sweeper. For the first time in his career, Gray has consecutive 200-strikeout seasons. He is the fourth Cardinal pitcher since 1920 with back-to-back 200-K seasons, joining Bob Gibson, Jose DeLeon, and Adam Wainwright. The strikeouts helped Gray pitch around three errors made while he was in the game, including two in the outfield that led to runs.
The first error came in the second inning as Gray allowed back-to-back doubles and would eventually walk two batters to load the bases.
His season had sinkholes of short outings with lots of runs, and in the second inning he felt a familiar undertow of a game “that turned into going 3 1/3 and giving up seven runs.”
How he adjusted reinforced how he improved through this season.
“It was kind of a combination of my season, and I was able to manage it much better,” Gray said. “In the second inning I was able to slow it down, make a pitch, get out of the bases-loaded jam rather than giving up the double. Then making the adjustment on what’s leading me to that situation and being able to execute that and not let the whole game play out and be like, ‘What just happened?’”
When the Giants became more aggressive earlier in counts – as opponents routinely have against Gray this season – he and catcher Pedro Pages flipped their pitch use to exploit the Giants’ approach.
The veteran right-hander threw more curves than any other pitch and nine of his 18 swings and misses came on that breaking ball. The Giants swung at 12 curves, made contact on only three, and put two in play.
“Trusting it to righties and to lefties and landing that in an 0-0 count or a 1-0 count or in a 2-0 count rather than, ‘Here’s your heater in the middle,’” Gray said. “Yeah, that was definitely a counter. OK, you’re hitting my firm stuff early. So let me adjust and let me spin the ball early. The adjustment was if you throw your fastball in a 0-0 count, get it more to the edges. But you’re going to have to trust your off-speed in the zone.”
Gray did that to complete six and left the game with the Cardinals trailing by a run, a run that scored after Jordan Walker dropped a fly ball in right field.
The Cardinals rallied to tie the game in the eighth before their former backup catcher Andrew Knizner’s RBI triple in the bottom of the inning broke the tie. Knizner had two RBIs in the game, and both of them broke ties, ultimately eliminating the Cardinals from the wild-card race with the loss in their 159th game.
Gray finished the year with 201 strikeouts and his 180 2/3 innings are the fourth-most of his career. He led the National League with 5.39 strikeouts for every walk, and his walk rate (1.9 per nine innings) was the lowest in the NL. Gray connected the dots between a career-low walk rate and a career-high 24 home runs allowed. The bloat in his 4.28 ERA came from those homers.
“I don’t love that because that’s what you look at on a daily basis,” Gray said. “I’m a little old school still, too.”
But he offered a new-school review.
“If walking a few more guys leads to a few more hits, but definitely a few more damaging hits, and less homers,” Gray said. “I don’t think I’ve ever led the league in walks-per-nine. I don’t think that’s my thing. I think there’s a tradeoff there. Is leading the league in walks per nine does that incorporate damage? I don’t know. As my walks go down, my homers go up.”
Gray also had a career-worst batting average on balls in play (.332) that usually normalizes around .300. Several of his pitches were more consistent, even sharper at times like the curve, all while his sweeping slider remains one of the best breaking balls in the majors. For the second consecutive year, his strikeout rate improved. All of that and he made 32 starts without interruption.
“I clearly still have all of the things to be a top pitcher,” Gray said. “If we were to continue to go and play for another month, I feel like I’m really catching a wind and catching into a groove where I really could keep going. I still feel very strong. So that’s a good thing. I have the ability to win an award and be a top-five pitcher in the game.”
The question becomes what jersey he’s in for his next pitch.
At the end of his candid interview Wednesday night, Gray was asked where he felt the Cardinals were with their young pitchers and their roster, what his view is knowing the direction they’re headed and considering his place in it.
“I think as long as we expect to win, we’re going to continue to exceed expectations,” Gray said. “And throughout this process that this organization is going to, I just feel like the more you can still expect to win and win like we’ve done, the better off it’s going to be and the faster the timeline is going to go.
“In the clubhouse, you have to continue to expect to win.”
Former backup catcher twice breaks tie and his late-game triple sends San Francisco to a 4-3 victory late Wednesday night that drops Cardinals to 78-81.
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Derrick Goold | Post-Dispatch
Lead baseball writer
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