Red Sox Acquire Sonny Gray For Brandon Clarke, Richard Fitts In Trade With Cardinals
Image credit: Sonny Gray (Photo by Bob Kupbens/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
In a move that may prove to be the first shoe to drop in a busy offseason pitching market, the Red Sox acquired veteran righthanded pitcher Sonny Gray on Tuesday for righthander Richard Fitts and lefthanded pitching prospect Brandon Clarke.
In landing Gray, the Red Sox add a seasoned arm to their 2026 rotation while offering a sign that they may have pivoted from the Dylan Cease sweepstakes as he closes in on a deal elsewhere.
Gray is a veteran starter with 13 years of MLB experience. Both Fitts and Clarke, meanwhile, have ranked inside Boston’s Top 10 prospects at points over the last two seasons and offer the Cardinals additional pitching depth in their improving farm system.
RED SOX RECEIVE
Sonny Gray, RHP
Age: 36
A three-time all-star and one of the most consistent starting pitchers in the major leagues over the last decade, Gray has spent the last two seasons with the Cardinals after stints with the Athletics, Yankees, Reds and Twins. The well-traveled righthander has proven to be unbelievably durable over his career, particularly in the last few seasons. He has exceeded 165 innings in each of the last three years, including two seasons in which he exceeded 180 total innings.
In a Red Sox rotation that desperately needs durable veteran starters, Gray is a perfect fit. He should slide in behind Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet as the team’s No. 2 option.
As he’s gotten up in age over the last few seasons, Gray has seen a drop in fastball velocity, which has coincided with a jump in hard-hit rate, barrel rate and a drop in swinging-strike rate. Despite the drop in fastball quality, Gray’s slider and curveball both grade as plus pitches and will likely see a jump in usage with the Red Sox, who threw more breaking balls throughout their organization than any other club in 2025.
CARDINALS RECEIVE
Brandon Clarke, LHP
Age: 22
One of the loudest performers this past spring, as Clarke blew away scouts in the Red Sox Spring Breakout game and on the backfields in minor league spring training.
After dominating the Low-A Carolina League to begin the season, Clarke was promoted to High-A Greenville. There, he struggled with command and health. Clarke did only one stint on the injured list in 2025, but he missed a month at two different points in the season. He was shut down in May and didn’t return until the end of June. His season ended on Aug. 15 when the Red Sox placed him on the injured list with recurring blister issues.
Clarke possesses some of the best power stuff in the minors. He mixes both four-seam and two-seam fastballs, with the two-seamer the better of the two. He generates outlier velocity on both, sitting 96-98 mph and touching 100 at peak. Clarke’s best pitch is an upper-80s sweeper with one of the most outlier combinations of velocity and movement among the sweeper genre. The pitch blows up Stuff models and overwhelmed opposing hitters in 2025.
There are major questions around Clarke’s strike-throwing and durability, making him a likely reliever long term. Despite this, his raw traits are so exciting it would be a fool’s errand to write off his ability to start.
Richard Fitts, RHP
Age: 25
Over the last two seasons, Fitts has spent large parts of his year in the major leagues. He was shut down in August with arm neuritis. The rare condition affected nerves around Fitts biceps and avoided any damage to his UCL. The lack of durability has been a concern for Fitts, as he was held to a total of 75 innings this season.
When healthy, Fitts shows a back-end starter’s profile with good enough stuff for his pitch mix to play up if he’s moved to the bullpen long term. He did a good job diversifying his options for generating outs in 2025, as he drove more groundball contact than at any point in his career after introducing a sinker.
Fitts mixes a four-seam fastball that sits 95-97 mph with a sinker in the 94-96 range, an upper-80s slider, a lower-80s curveball and a rarely-used changeup. Fitts should factor into the Cardinals’ rotation plans for the upcoming season.
