Morning Rundown: Aaron Nola re-signs with Philadelphia, Sonny Gray rumors
The first big signing of the offseason, rumors on another
One of the first dominos fell in the free agent market, as the Philadelphia Phillies re-signed right-handed pitcher Aaron Nola to a massive 7-year deal worth $172 million.
The deal will make Nola until his age-37 season. He has spent his entire career in Philadelphia after being the seventh overall pick in 2014 and has 90 wins since making his major league debut in 2015.
Having Nola signed was key, as he was one of the top free agents available, setting the market for the rest. That’s particularly key for the Pirates, who are in the market for multiple starting pitchers.
Sonny Gray, another of the top free-agent pitchers, will have attention turned to him now. The Atlanta Braves are now reported to be one of the top suitors for the right-handed Gray, one of the finalists for the Cy Young this past year.
Pitching for the Minnesota Twins last year, Gray went 8-8 with a 2.79 ERA and a 5.3 WAR.
It’s Monday, so we will have another mailbag article out later today. Make sure you send in your questions to bucsondeckqa@gmail.com for the following week's article.
On a more general note, the Nola signing maybe got the pitching market moving, as someone suggested it would. So far just Lopez and Lynn today, but it's something. Lynn was someone that I thought would be a good signing as a veteran leader, but it makes sense that he'd sign with the Cards.
Sonny Gray just finished a 4-yr contract over which he put up 12 fWAR for only like $45m.
Coupla those would go a long way, Ben.