The Cubs should trade Tyler Chatwood for Sonny Gray

Even with Tyler Chatwood’s three-inning scoreless outing Saturday, it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to do anything more than mopup duty in blowouts the rest of this year.

Saturday, I proposed a bad-contract swap of Chatwood for former Cubs closer Wade Davis. Some of you liked that; others didn’t. The dislike isn’t unreasonable; Davis is older than Chatwood and his contract calls for more money, which would have to be equalized in some way.

Here’s another proposal, made in the comments to Saturday’s article, that might make more sense for the Cubs — send Chatwood to the Yankees for Sonny Gray. So I thought I’d take a detailed look at Gray.

Like Chatwood, Gray had success as a starter with his previous team. Gray even had 11 pretty good starts for the Yankees in 2017 after they acquired him from the Athletics.

But this year, Gray’s just been bad, nearly as bad as Chatwood (though with fewer walks). Like Chatwood, Gray was recently demoted to the bullpen. And again like Chatwood, Gray recently had a three-inning scoreless appearance in relief, August 7 vs. the White Sox.

There are more similarities between the two. They are almost exactly the same age; Gray is about six weeks older than Chatwood. The Cubs, under Jim Hendry, drafted Gray out of high school in 2008 (27th round), before he went to Vanderbilt, where his coach was Derek Johnson. Johnson later became the Cubs’ minor-league pitching coordinator and is now the Brewers pitching coach.

Anyway, here’s another change-of-scenery deal which could benefit both players. The contract situation is a bit different here, though. Chatwood is owed about $28 million over the next two-plus seasons. Gray is making $6.5 million this year and is arbitration-eligible next year, after which he’ll be a free agent.

So the Cubs would probably have to pick up the rest of Chatwood’s money this year (about $3 million) and probably pay the rest of Gray’s deal for 2018 (a little less than $2 million) to entice the Yankees to make this swap. The Cubs might have to throw a prospect into the deal as well, since the Yankees would be taking on quite a bit of money in 2019 and 2020.

Would you do this? Do you think Theo & Co. could make a proposal Brian Cashman would accept?

Fun fact: Sonny Gray’s real given first name is... Sonny. His baseball-reference page says his full name is Sonny Douglas Gray.