Colorado Rockies GM Bill Schmidt: “There hasn’t been any conversation” with Jon Gray recently

The Colorado Rockies have two big free agents on the market this offseason in Trevor Story and Jon Gray. All indications are that Story will certainly be on his way out of Denver and that, of the two, Jon Gray is the most likely to return to the Rockies.

However, as we have mentioned recently, the Rockies have had a lot of missteps with Gray throughout the season, including not bringing an offer to Gray’s camp earlier, lowballing Gray on a contract offer, and not offering him a qualifying offer (there’s no such thing as a bad one-year deal).

But the Colorado Rockies and Jon Gray have not negotiated since the end of the season, according to GM Bill Schmidt.

But, at the GM Meetings in Carlsbad, California, Rox Pile’s Kevin Henry spoke with Rockies GM Bill Schmidt and, among many other things in the 30+ minute conversation that Schmidt spoke with the media, he revealed that the Rockies and Gray have not been in touch recently on any kind of extension.

“There hasn’t been any (recent) conversation,” said Schmidt. “We had some at the end of the season and that’s really been it. We said we’d stay in touch. Yeah, that’s where it’s at. Again, it’s early in the process and they’re trying to figure out what the market is (for him).”

As Schmidt said, it is early in the offseason as the Atlanta Braves just won the World Series just over a week ago and free agents just became free agents last weekend.

But Schmidt, essentially, confirmed the reporting from Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post in that Gray’s camp and the Rockies spoke at the end of the season (the last homestand, in particular). But, obviously, the two sides did not come to an agreement on a deal.

As we discussed in this article, the Rockies reportedly offered three years and $35-$40 million to Gray when comparable pitchers have received double the length of contract and triple to nearly quadruple the amount of the contract. For what it’s worth, MLB Trade Rumors predicts that Gray will get a four-year deal for $56 million this offseason.

With the variables of this offseason, nobody knows what Gray will get but barring some cataclysmic event this offseason, Gray will get more than the Rockies offered him at the end of the season, but will they make a better offer to keep him for the future?