Elephant Rumblings: Trade Rumors, Sonny’s Transformation, and Trolls

Trade Rumors:

MLB.com’s Jon Morosi reports that Yonder Alonso has been the source of “ongoing trade discussions” between the Yankees and A’s. No deal appears imminent, but these things can come together quickly.

Various outlets have opined that a package deal sending Sonny Gray and Alonso to the Yankees makes sense for both sides. The Yankees certainly have the farm system to make the deal happen. While Alonso is a cheap rental, Gray is under team control through 2019 and would likely push the prospect return beyond that which the A’s received in the Rich Hill/Josh Reddick trade.

And an update on Jed Lowrie:

More on Sonny Gray:

Jeff Sullivan wrote about the transformation of Sonny Gray at Fangraphs. While I suspect most A’s fans will reach a different conclusion, it was an interesting piece nonetheless.

Miscellaneous:

Echoing many of Praulinde’s sentiments, Ann Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that A’s fans aren’t buying the promise of this latest rebuild…

The A’s have release their own “Game of Thrones” theme…

The Astros held a memorial service for Carlos Beltran’s glove yesterday, proving the age-old wisdom that it’s easy to have fun when you’re 30 games above .500.

Best of Twitter:

Well this was a bit of a downer…

In spite of the low attendance, the A’s scoreboard crew did their part with some first class trolling…

The A’s are primed to get another young utility player back soon.

And finally, a major false alarm was rung last night when J.D. Martinez and Victor Robles were removed from their respective games at the same time. Was J.D. going to be a Nat? A three team deal?! For a very fun moment, the trade rumors were running rampant. As it turned out, Martinez was suffering from back tightness.