Cardinals deal pitcher Sonny Gray to Boston. Here’s what they get in return
The retooling of the St. Louis Cardinals roster began in earnest on Tuesday morning, as the Cardinals have agreed to trade ace starter Sonny Gray to the Boston Red Sox, a source confirmed to the Belleville News-Democrat.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post was the first to report the deal.
Gray, who had a full no-trade clause, had to approve the deal with Boston. He was previously owed $35 million in salary for 2026 and a $5 million buy out of a 2027 team option. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that Gray’s deal was reworked into $31 million in salary for 2026 and a $10 million buyout of a mutual option, guaranteeing him an additional million dollars after agreeing to the trade. The Red Sox are sending right-handed starter Richard Fitts, left-handed prospect starter Brandon Clarke and cash or a player to be named later to the Cardinals. The Cardinals are also sending the Red Sox $20 million to mitigate the salary owed to Gray.
“We are pleased to add these two talented young pitchers to our organization,” president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said in a press release. “Richard Fitts has already begun his big league career, and with his power stuff and willingness to attack the strike zone, he has the ability to start games at the highest level for many years. Brandon Clarke is an exciting left-handed prospect whose ceiling rivals that of any pitcher in the minor leagues. Both have the potential to be part of our growing core for a long time, and we are happy to welcome them to the Cardinals.”
Gray, who turned 36 this month, signed a three-year deal with the Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season. In two seasons as the club’s unquestioned ace, he struck out 404 in 347 innings, ranking in the top ten in baseball in strikeouts in both seasons. In both years, he posted a fielding independent pitching mark below 3.50, and significantly below his earned run average. In 2025, that was due in large part to a spike in home run rate that resulted from his attempts to experiment with some pitch mix strategies, especially early in games.
Fitts, who turns 26 in December, has made 15 appearances (14 starts) in spot duty for the Red Sox over the last two seasons. He will serve as rotation depth for a club that now finds itself badly in need of starters, as the departure of Gray and Miles Mikolas (free agency) leaves only Andre Pallante, Matthew Liberatore and Michael McGreevy as holdovers from the 2025 rotation.
Clarke, 22, was a fifth-round pick of the Red Sox in 2024. He had 60 strikeouts in 38 innings pitched at High-A in his professional debut last season. He was ranked by FanGraphs as Boston’s fourth-best prospect, and the 86th-best across baseball.
Neither Clarke nor Fitts were part of the Boston organization when Bloom was at its helm.
With Gray’s departure, the Cardinals will now look to back fill the rotation in the free agent market, or perhaps in additional trades. Fitts immediately becomes part of the group who will be considered for starts, though with two minor league options, the Cardinals have flexibility to use him as a depth option.
“Regardless of whether we’re building for the long haul, we still do see value in what veterans can contribute in the short term,” Bloom said. “That is definitely something we are mindful of, something we will be mindful of as we do build this club, and I do expect us to add to this club too, as the winter goes on.
Andre Pallante, who struggled mightily in 2025, is now the organization’s incumbent career leader in starts, with just 61. He and Matthew Liberatore (53) are the only two pitchers currently under contract who have made as many as 20 starts in the big leagues, and they will be presumed to hold down two of the five rotation spots.
Two of the other spots will likely belong to Michael McGreevy, who solidified his role in the second half of 2025, and Kyle Leahy, who spun a strong relief season and an expansive repertoire into an off-season plan that lines him up for the rotation. Leahy was tapped to start the Cardinals’ final game of the season in Chicago, and a source with direct knowledge of the team’s plans said Tuesday that he will not enter spring with any ambiguity in his role. He is a starter, and will be so unless injury or performance dictate otherwise.
Trading Gray is a significant move that further shapes expectations for the 2026 season. Pending a surprise acquisition, it’s unlikely that the Cardinals, despite their search for depth, will locate a starter on the acquisition market with his pedigree or experience level. Gray, for all his particularities, made 32 starts and topped 180 innings in 2025; Pallante was second on the team in innings with 162 ⅔.
“We like the upside of the guys we have, and my hope is that as the winter goes on, we will be able to add more players that have a chance to pitch in the rotation for a while,” Bloom added.
Gray arrived in St. Louis at the head of a vanguard of veteran starters prior to 2024 as the team attempted to quickly course correct and return to competitive success on the fly. Despite arguably better-than-expected results over the last two seasons, they were unable to reach the playoffs. Trading him now is a tacit acknowledgement of an expected further step back in 2026, even as Bloom has resisted implications that the team would “concede” anything competitively in the coming years.
A stockpile of arms, such as Clarke and Fitts, is broadly considered a necessary step in forming a competitive base to allow for future success. The Cardinals did not have a starting pitcher miss time with injury in 2025, an extreme aberration in the course of franchise history. The lack of viable starting pitching depth at Triple-A Memphis went unpunished in large measure throughout the year due to that unnaturally good health.
That is unlikely to repeat in 2026. Additional arms will be necessary. Further motion in the trade market around such players as Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan should push the needle firmly in that direction.
“We have a number of players who the league has interest in,” Bloom acknowledged. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to move them, necessarily, because we like them too, but we’ll see where it all goes. It’s too early at this point to predict anything there.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2025 at 11:08 AM.
