I’m not entirely sure if there was ever a player to be happier out of New York than right-hander Sonny Gray . The righty was solid in Oakland, outside of 2016, but things just didn’t click for him in New York. He logged 195.2 total innings for the Yankees, going 15-16 with an ERA well above 4.00 and inflated home run rate. He induced fewer ground balls with the Bronx Bombers and some switches to his repertoire really set him back. However, despite perhaps a worst park for pitchers, Gray turned things around for a productive 2019 season. In 175.1 innings pitched with the Reds, he went 11-8 with a 2.87 ERA (3.42 FIP, 3.65 xFIP), a 9.6 percent walk rate and a lofty 28.9 percent strikeout rate.
To be honest, he was exceptional in terms of Statcast metrics, and far better than his previous season. Take a look at his overview from 2019, and you will see a lot of red, which is good!
He was bad in New York, but some of the marks above might be in line for some regression, but we’ll get to that later on. The key for Gray, and all pitchers for that fact, is minimizing hard contact. Per Baseball Savant, his hard hit rate of 33.3 percent last year is the lowest mark he’s posted in the past five years, and while his 6.8 percent barrel rate was the highest in the aforementioned span, it’s not far off from previous years.
While his marks in terms of average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives continues to go down, it doesn’t fully explain his HR/9 mark dropped to 0.87 last year, which was his lowest mark since 2015. He’s inducing fewer ground balls, and he no longer pitches in the spacious confines of Oakland’s home park. Lucky or good? I want to say it’s both, but there seems to be some lucky involved here.
Year | Avg. Exit Velocity | Avg. Exit Velocity (FB/LD) | Avg. Exit Velocity (GB) |
2016 | 89.8 | 94.2 | 87.7 |
2017 | 86.7 | 93.2 | 82.2 |
2018 | 87.9 | 92.9 | 84.8 |
2019 | 87.1 | 92.0 | 84.3 |
Courtesy of Baseball Savant
His HR/FB rates from those years were as follows: 17.5 percent, 15.1 percent, 13.3 percent and 13.0 percent. The decline here coincides with the decreasing fly ball and line drive exit velocities, as well as, per Baseball Savant, increasing pop up rates and “under” rates. However, he’s still allowing more fly balls and he’s not pitching in the best of home parks.
As a final thought on the home run issue, as well as a precursor to what’s coming next, he threw his fastball more in 2019, and opponents chased it out of the zone a bit more, but the staggering mark here is that his fastball posted a 37.6 percent fly ball rate. Before 2019, his previous career high was just 25.4 percent back in 2017. And you are telling me home runs went down!?
As mentioned earlier on, his repertoire switched a bit last year. Take a look for yourself:
Let’s start with his slider. He threw it more and it was a good idea to do so, considering it had another effective year. It resulted in a swinging strike rate above 18 percent for the third straight year, and when the pitch was thrown in the strike zone, the opposition made less contact. Consider this. In 2018, when his slider was thrown in the zone and the batter swung, the contact rate was 95 percent, but in 2019, it was just 86.3 percent, which is the lowest mark he’s produced since 2016. Wow.
My last bit of skepticism with Gray resides in his jump in strikeouts. Typically, you’ll see a sizable jump in O-Swing rate, or contact rate, or swinging strikeout rate that can lead to a sizable jump in strikeout rate. We don’t exactly have that with Gray. Sure, we have a career low contact rate about four percentage points below the previous year, but the chase rate and swinging strike rate hardly jumped. However, we are staring down the barrel of a roughly eight percentage point jump in strikeout rate!
This doesn’t add up, and I think Gray is in line for some regression in 2020, especially in terms of his strikeout rate, and likely a few more home runs against his ledger. Gray can still be a solid starter in fantasy baseball in 2020, even if his strikeout rate drops to 25 percent and his ERA pushes closer to 3.50. That’s still plenty good. He’s currently the 29th pitcher (25th starter) off the board, and if you can get him as your SP3, that’s solid value. There is some regression to be expected with Gray in 2020, and while he won’t be the Gray we saw in 2019, he surely won’t be the Gray we saw back in 2018 either.
Statistical Credits:
fangraphs.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com
nfc.shgn.com/adp/baseball