The Red Sox acquired pitcher Sonny Gray from the Cardinals for two players and other considerations:

Vocal about the need to add an established starting pitcher to slot behind ace Garrett Crochet in the starting rotation, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow achieved that goal on Tuesday by adding veteran righty and three-time All-Star Sonny Gray in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.

In exchange, Boston sent right-hander Richard Fitts and lefty prospect Brandon Clarke — the team’s No. 5 prospect per MLB Pipeline at the time of the trade — to the Cardinals.

MLB.com

The Red Sox also received $20 million from St. Louis and were able to rework Gray’s contract for Competitive Balance Tax reasons.

The last two seasons Gray posted high ERAs but low xFIPs. His very good three-true outcome rates earned him 7.4 fWAR over the last two seasons. Note that rWAR, which measures what he actually accomplished, put him at 3.2. rWAR over the same time period. That value is more reflective of his 4.07 ERA. He tended to give up power with men on base, and that’s when giving up power hurts one the most.

In general, I consider fWAR more predictive, so in that sense this looks like a good move. Fitts looked more impressive in the minors than the majors, and the Cardinals ballpark might be a better fit for him. Clarke owns 38 innings in A ball in his professional career, striking out 60 batters but walking 27 and hitting 12 . He has yet to allow a home run, however. So 99 of the 174 batters he faced did not put the ball in play. He is 22, so not terribly young, and we’ll see if the Cardinals can get his walks under control.