Colorado Rockies: Could we see Jon Gray on his way to Milwaukee?

Early Friday morning, Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com published an article about five blockbuster trades worth making. One of those involved a starting pitcher of the Colorado Rockies that has been the most brought up name in trades from the team: Jon Gray.

Jon Gray has been a name that has bandied about by nearly everybody as a potential “change of scenery” candidate. We have discussed it as well as some of our colleagues at other FanSided sites including Rays Colored Glasses and Jays Journal (as we discussed in this article) and, most recently, over at Puckett’s Pond, the Twins’ FanSided site, in this article (that also includes another trade proposal between the Twins and Rockies not involving Gray).

Jon Gray even drew some trade interest in July before the trade deadline, according to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post.

MLB.com has joined in as well and their most recent article about Jon Gray being traded was by Anthony Castrovince and he suggests that a Gray would be a good fit in Milwaukee with the Brewers.

The Brewers have an obvious need for a starter as they, in reality, have about 5 guys who are all number 3, 4, or 5 starters. Jon Gray, while he has had his share of struggles, could provide the Brewers with a high end starting pitcher if he were to reach his potential.

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In return, the Rockies would be getting two players. One of them would be outfielder Domingo Santana. He had a career year in 2017 in which he hit 30 home runs, 85 RBI, a .278/.371/.505 slash line, and a OPS+ of 126. However, in 2018, he regressed down to a 97 OPS+ in only 85 games at the major league level. However, he was squeezed out of a spot in the outfield in Milwaukee after they traded for eventual NL MVP Christian Yelich and nabbed outfielder Lorenzo Cain from the free agent market.

For the second player, Castrovince suggests one of two prospects. One of them is outfield prospect Joe Gray, who is the Brewers 6th best prospect. He was only drafted in 2018 and only played in rookie ball. He is extremely young (he was born in 2000, which makes me feel very old) so he obviously would need some time to develop.

Another potential prospect is the Brewers #4 prospect, third baseman Lucas Erceg. Castrovince suggests him in case that Nolan Arenado leaves the Rockies. However, Erceg hit .248/.306/.382 in 123 games in Double-A Biloxi with 13 home runs and 51 RBI, which is nothing to write home about. In addition, he committed 23 errors last season.

Final Thoughts

For me, if you could guarantee that Santana would put up his 2017 numbers in 2019, I’d personally trade Jon Gray for him straight up but, obviously, we don’t have that luxury. The Rockies would want more out of him and, frankly, they would want better prospects out of this trade proposal or they would ask for more major league talent.

For example, since the Brewers have a surplus of relievers, the Rockies would probably ask for one of them (e.g. Jeremy Jeffress or Corey Knebel). The bottom line is that this deal would almost definitely not get it done from a Rockies perspective given that Jon Gray could become a very, very good starting pitcher.

However, I think that this is probably a fair trade for Gray at this point in his career but the Rockies will try to get as much as they can out of him, be that in a trade or just keeping him, the latter of which is what I think will probably be the case.