On Tuesday, the Cardinals – to somewhat of a surprise – traded Sonny Gray. Most encouragingly, they traded Sonny Gray and picked up $20 million of the check. Well, I was wrong in two ways. I thought Gray had limited his trade pool more than he had and I did not expect Bill Dewitt to greenlight paying for a prospect (at least to this extent). Had my assumptions been different, I would have been more firmly on the trade Sonny Gray bandwagon. As it stands, I was a skeptic.
One way to look at this is that the Cardinals traded Sonny Gray for Richard Fitts; and they traded $20 million in cash for Brandon Clarke. I am of course oversimplfying. It’s difficult to say how Fitts and Clarke are valued – some sources have them as top 100 prospects; in Fitts’ case, a former top 100 prospect as he has graduated from being a prospect this past season. No matter how they’re valued, there is really no way to look at the value of this trade and on paper anyway, not conclude the Red Sox overpaid for Sonny Gray.
Does this mean the Cardinals got two future starters in this trade? No of course not. We don’t know how this will turn out. You’ll see some people claim the Cardinals got a 5th starter and a future reliever in this trade, and that might end up being true, but I think the statement is deceiving. In actual results, it’s fairly likely that Fitts and Clarke will end up outproducing Sonny Gray’s one season in WAR. That doesn’t meant the Red Sox are guaranteed to regret the trade – it just means these two pitchers should be capable of combining for 3 WAR in 12 years.
Also, this is a good opportunity to rehash my pet peeve, which I saw just about everywhere yesterday. I don’t actually believe that the people who call Fitts a 5th starter think he will be as bad as a 5th starter. I think they have a distorted view of what a real 5th starter looks like. What I’m saying is if you actually asked those people for the numbers they expect Fitts to have, I doubt sincerely the numbers reflect a “5th starter.” In general, people way overrate what every numbered starter actually looks like. A 5th starter looks something like Andre Pallante in 2025 in terms of ERA and FIP and I cannot stress enough how much I doubt people saying Fitts is a 5th starter think he’ll actually be worth 0.7 WAR in 31 starts. Let’s take a closer look at the return.
Richard Fitts
Fitts was drafted in the 6th round of the 2021 draft by the New York Yankees out of Auburn. He was not really on the prospect radar understandably, but pitched well enough in 2022 that he started the 2023 season in AA. He pitched well there, but the Yankees traded him in the offseason in a package for Alex Verdugo. Chaim Bloom had no part in this trade as he was already fired. Both players the Cardinals got, contrary to what you might think, were not in the Red Sox organization at the same time as Bloom. They were not acquired by him or anything. In AAA, Fitts sort of hit a roadblock although he didn’t pitch poorly, just not as well as the previous levels – he was placed in Fangraphs top 100 after the season.
In 2025, well he had the kind of season that gets one traded. He only threw 75 innings at all levels, was homer prone when he did pitch in the majors, and his season was shut down in August with arm neuritis. I don’t know what that it is, but it affects the nerves. Baseball America notes his arsenal as “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.”
He’s supposed to have a good slider – it got wrecked in 2025, and it could possibly have been because of the arm neuritis. Fangraphs seems to like him because in their report on him in June, they stressed his good command of his pitches. “He can alter the shape of his breaking ball in a couple of ways; he has a cutter in the 85-89 mph range, a curveball in the low-80s, and a slider with velos that blend in between the two of them. The changeup is good every once in a while, and Fitts’ command helps make it so that even when it lacks movement, it tends to stay out of trouble.” And they do in fact give him 60 command.
Really, his 2025 was not as bad as one might think. He struck out 20.5% of batters – a little below average; he walked 8.2% – almost dead average; and induced groundballs 43.6% of the time – a little above average. His main weakness was similar to Andre Pallante’s: whenever he did allow a flyball, they left the park 23% of the time. I am sure the move from Fenway to Busch Stadium may help and then just plain old fashioned better luck will help as well. His 4.27 xFIP is pretty similar to Sonny Gray’s 4.26 ERA.
Brandon Clarke
Similar to Fitts, Clarke was not drafted particularly high. He was drafted in the 5th round of the 2024 draft by the Red Sox out of State College of Florida Manatee, in other words, it’s pretty clear he got drafted because the Red Sox saw potential in his pitch quality. He was in fact committed to go to South Carolina, but he wowed the scouts at the 2024 draft combine.
Clarke is very much similar to the prospects the Cardinals received at the deadline this year. His numbers are flashy, at least at Low A, but he was not asked to throw more than a few innings per start. Despite that he had two separate month-long stints on the injured list. One of them was for a recurring blister issues that ended his season in August. To that point, he had struggled in High A, though him struggling was mostly a command issue – he still struck out 31.2% of batters.
He was considerably better in Low A, where he struck out 47.2% of the batters he faced – though he threw just 9.2 innings. He only walked 5.6% two and on top of that, he got groundballs 68.8% of the time. It’s a level of domination you will never see in the majors leagues. It is entirely possible, if not probable, that Clarke’s High A numbers were affected by his blister problems.
I’ll just let Baseball America describe his stuff: “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.“
They then call him a likely reliever because of his durability and strike throwing problems, but it does kind of seem like he could be a really good reliever if indeed he can’t start. And it’s also possible his command problems are a tad overblown, being affected by his recurring blisters. We can only hope.
All in all, I’m very happy with the trade. Some may be unhappy with the combination of limited upside that Fitts seemingly brings and high likelihood of relieverdom that Clarke brings, but honestly a more surething high potential pitching prospect is just not going to be available in a trade. If you want the high upside in a trade, you kind of have to accept they come with some warts. And if you want the certainty, upside is probably going to take a hit. I do take a bit of issue with people underplaying Fitts’ upside – it’s not an ace, but it’s also not 4th starter I don’t think – but yeah he’s not necessarily the player you dream on.
I am excited for the next trade, presumably Brendan Donovan, and if the reporting is correct, they are asking for a lot, and I hope someone reaches that asking price.
