Yankees general manager Brian Cashman’s response to Sonny Gray’s comments about his time in New York has appeared to infuriate the pitcher’s agent, Bo McKinnis.
Gray, who was traded the Red Sox last week, told Boston reporters that he “never wanted to go” to New York.
In response to that claim, Cashman told reporters at the general manager meetings that Gray, who spent 2017-2018 with the Yankees, expressed a desire to play in New York because his agent told him to do so in order to not harm his free-agency value. Cashman also claimed that Gray told the Yankees’ minor-league video coordinator that he wanted out of Oakland.
McKinnis denied those claims in an email to the Associated Press.
“So Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman’s words, ‘lie’ to the minor league video guy to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees, to subsequently somehow help Sonny’s free agency,” McKinnis wrote in the email.
“This makes zero sense. If any player does not want to play for a certain club — thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team — it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Brian’s claim makes no sense. Further, the words, ‘I want out of Oakland,’ have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the A’s.”
Here is Cashman’s response to Gray’s initial comments:
“If people want to turn the clock back and go find it in all the reporting when he was back with us … this isn’t like letting you behind the Iron Curtain. His college roommate at Vanderbilt was our minor-league video coordinator. So when he was with the A’s, he was telling our minor-league video coordinator, ‘You got to get me over to the Yankees. Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. I want out of Oakland. I want to win a world championship … blah, blah, blah.’”
“It wasn’t just him. He was communicating that to a number of different people that was getting to us that he wants to be a Yankee. He is a hell of a pitcher, so we made a trade, acquired him. He said he was excited.
“The first time, it didn’t work out (in 2018). The following season, it didn’t work out. He never said anything other than he was struggling. We were trying to support him every step of the way.
“It was after a trade deadline had been completed, he asked to meet with me. He said, ‘Hey, can we talk?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ So we went into one of the offices by the training room, Chad Bohling’s office. Closed the door.
“He said, ‘I thought you were going to trade me.’ I was like, ‘Publicly, I’m trying to get pitching and bullpen (help). Why would I trade a starter when we need pitching badly?
“He goes, ‘I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never wanted to be … ‘ That’s when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room. He told me all this stuff.
“I said, ‘It’s a little late now.’ Then I told him, ‘You said you wanted to be traded here. He said, ‘My agent, Bo McKinnis, told me to do that. He told me to lie. It wouldn’t be good for my free agency to say there’s certain places I don’t want to go to.’ I told him, ‘Nothing I can do about it now. I wish you would have told me well beforehand. I wish we knew this before we even tried to acquire you, that you never wanted to come here.’
“I said, ‘We’ll have to play the year out. This winter, I’ll do whatever I can to move you.’ We moved him to the Reds. That’s what happened.”
