Cashman says Gray expressed desire to play for Yankees at behest of agent to protect value

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says Sonny Gray admitted he expressed a desire to play in New York at the behest of his agent so as not to harm his free-agency value and didn't voice his dislike of the Big Apple until after the 2018 trade deadline had passed.

Gray was acquired by Boston in a trade from St. Louis last month and spoke of his 1 1/2 seasons in New York during a Zoom news conference on Dec. 2.

“New York was, it just wasn’t a good situation for me, wasn’t a great setup for me and my family,” he said. “I never wanted to go there in the first place.”

His agent denied Cashman's allegations in an email to The Associated Press.

Gray was traded from Oakland to the Yankees in July 2017 and went 15-16 with a 4.52 ERA with New York. He was dropped from the rotation in August 2018 after he smirked when fans booed as he walked off the Yankee Stadium mound in the third inning of a 7-5 loss to Baltimore. He was dealt to Cincinnati in January 2019.

“After the deadline was over, he asked to meet with me. He said, 'Hey, can we talk?'” Cashman said Sunday night after arriving at the winter meetings.

Cashman recalled meeting with Gray in the clubhouse office of Chad Bohling, the Yankees' senior director of organizational performance.

“He said, 'I thought you were going to trade me,'” Cashman said. “I was like, publicly I’m out trying to get pitching, starting pitching and bullpen. Why would I trade a starter when we need pitching badly? ... And he goes, ‘Well I got to tell you, I’ve never wanted to —' that’s when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room."

“I said, Well it’s a little late now,” Cashman recalled. “So then I told him, I said, but you said you wanted to be traded here. And he said, 'My agent, Bo McKinnis, told me to do that. He told me to lie. It wouldn’t be good for my free agency to say there are certain places that I don't want to go to.'”

“And I told him: Nothing I can do about it now. I wish you’d told me well beforehand. I wish we knew this before we even tried to acquire you that you never wanted to come here," Cashman said. "We tried to do our homework. … And I said so now we’ll just have to play the year out and this winter I’ll do whatever I can to move you and we moved him to the Reds.”

Cashman said the Yankees had a minor league video coordinator who had been roommates of Gray at Vanderbilt and that Gray had mentioned to his former roommate: "Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. Blah, blah, blah. Like I want out of Oakland. I want to win a world championship. Blah, blah, blah. So, and it wasn’t just him. He was communicating that to a number of different people that was getting to us, that he wants to be a Yankee."

McKinnis took issue with Cashman's comments.

“So Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman’s words, `lie' to the minor league video guy to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees, to subsequently somehow help Sonny’s free agency,” McKinnis wrote in an email to the AP.

“This makes zero sense,” McKinnis added. “If any player does not want to play for a certain club — thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team — it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Brian’s claim makes no sense. Further, the words, `I want out of Oakland,' have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the A’s.”

Now 36, Gray has become a three-time All-Star and is 125-102 with a 3.58 ERA over 13 seasons with the Athletics (2013-17), Yankees (2017-18), Reds (2019-21), Minnesota (2022-23) and Cardinals (2024-25). The right-hander waived a no-trade provision to accept the deal to the Red Sox.

“What did factor into my decision to come to Boston is it feels good to me to go to a place now where you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right? It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go in it with full force, full steam ahead," Gray said. "I like the challenge. I appreciate the challenge. I accept the challenge. But this time around it's just go out and be yourself. Don't try to be anything other than yourself and if people don't like it, it is what it is. I am who I am, and I'm OK with that."

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

FILE - St. Louis Cardinals' Sonny Gray pitches to a San Francisco Giants batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Sept. 24, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, file)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It may feel like '80s night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, with the new members including Billy Idol, Phil Collins, Sade, Queen Latifah, New Order, Luther Vandross and Iron Maiden.

But it's hard to say exactly what the vibe will be on Saturday at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with many of the inductees opting out of performing or appearing, and the Hall of Fame revealing next-to-nothing about the show during the run-up.

After streaming the ceremony live the past few years, the Rock Hall is returning to its previous model, where the public won’t see it until an edited version airs on ABC and Disney+ on Dec. 9.

Here's what we do know about the show:

Oasis, youngest of the inductees, won’t be coming. Guitarist Noel Gallagher is playing a gig back home in Britain, and his little brother, Liam Gallagher, just doesn't want to come.

“It’s too far to be going for the night,” he said in a post on the social platform X. He added in another, “I dont like award ceremonies they freak me out I dont know why I just get weird vibes."

Iron Maiden will be on tour in Australia. Sade is opting to sit it out, too. Collins is likely to appear, but he said he has to decline from playing his songs for health reasons. Key members of New Order, getting a joint induction with their previous incarnation Joy Division, will also be out for health reasons. Vandross died in 2005.

But the show will go on, and hip-hop could be the highlight. Wu-Tang Clan will be inducted along with Queen Latifah and MC Lyte, and all are expected to appear and probably perform.

And Idol, being inducted with his longtime guitarist Steve Stevens, will take the stage ready to rock.

Latifah and Lyte enter the hall as recipients of the Early Influence Award along with posthumous nominees Gram Parsons, Fela Kuti and Celia Cruz.

Parsons, an essential figure at the crossroads of country and rock in the 1960s and '70s, got his own separate tribute Wednesday night at the legendary Troubadour club in West Hollywood, where his duet partner Emmylou Harris along with Rock Hall-of-Famers Elvis Costello and Sheryl Crow sang his songs and saluted his legacy.

Kuti will become the first African-born artist in the hall, and Cruz will become the first member who sang primarily in Spanish.

A group of producers will be inducted via the Musical Excellence Award: Rick Rubin, Linda Creed, Arif Mardin and Jimmy Miller. And TV host Ed Sullivan will get in as the winner of the Ahmet Ertugun award, which goes to nonmusicians who've made rock history.

Many other major stars are likely to appear to induct the new members or to play the absentees' songs in tribute. The past few years, the hall has announced several special guests, though not their roles, the week of the show, but with no live airing this year it has returned to a model of keeping nearly everything secret until it happens.

The show is in Los Angeles for the second straight year, and organizers have said it will be here more often while still rotating to New York and Cleveland, where the actual hall resides.

This combination of images show, from left, Phil Collins, Billy Idol, Queen Latifah, Sade and Luther Vandross. (AP Photo)

FILE - Billy Idol performs during the Vive Latino music festival in Mexico City on March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme, File)