Cardinals' Sonny Gray Will Consider Waiving No-Trade Clause Ahead of Contract Year

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Sonny Gray told reporters on Wednesday night that he would give serious consideration to waiving his no-trade clause this winter.

"I think I do, just to be frank and to be honest," he said. "I definitely think I do. Whether I do decide that I want to go somewhere—whether that actually happens—I don't have complete control of that. Obviously, I have control of where I can't go or don't go. I'm going to be 36. It's going to be my 14th season. Last year of my contract for this. I don't know what the future holds for me. Truly, I don't know what that looks like for me yet."

Gray, 35, made his final start of the season on Wednesday, culminating a solid season with six innings of two-run pitching. In total, he'll finish 14-8 with a 4.28 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and 201 strikeouts in 180.2 innings.

His two seasons in St. Louis have been solid. He's finished with over 200 strikeouts in each campaign and posted a solid enough 4.07 ERA and 1.16 WHIP with the Cardinals.

What the Cardinals haven't provided him, however, is the chance to play postseason baseball. The team will miss the playoffs for the third straight year in 2025 and it's unclear if ending that mini drought will be the primary concern of the front office this winter.

As Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, the Cardinals "want to trim or reallocate payroll as they lean further into their youth" and will also "seek to move third baseman Nolan Arenado."

Gray said he knows "the deal" and "direction" the Cardinals plan to take under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, but also made it clear he wants to be playing October baseball.

"I came here to win," he told reporters. "I signed here two years ago with the expectation of winning and trying to win, and that hasn't played out that way. I want to win. I want to win, and I expect to win."

"I think as long as we expect to win, we're going to continue to exceed expectations," he added. "And throughout this process that this organization is going to, I just feel like the more you can still expect to win and win like we've done, the better off it's going to be and the faster the timeline is going to go. In the clubhouse, you have to continue to expect to win."

Gray is under contract next season for $35 million and has a club option for $30 million in 2027, so any team acquiring him would potentially have him for two more years (though if he doesn't produce next season, that option will assuredly be declined). He would be a prime candidate to be traded for a Cardinals team looking to rebalance the books around a younger roster, though he'll ultimately have the final say in that regard.